Enigmas: All That Glitters
by Alphinia
Summary: Lydia Leaf was always perfectly happy at home, reading her beloved books. But when Professor Oak asks her to do a favor, how can she refuse? On her quest to help him, she discovers that her world is much darker than it seems. Somewhat AU to FR. Discontinued.
1. Chapter 1: A Little Fire Lizard

**Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon, nor the Hobbit (Which is briefly mentioned in this chapter).**

**Quick Note: **This is not some romance fic, or extremely girly fic, even if it may briefly seem that way in the first few paragraphs. Just saying!

_All that glitters is not gold: Everything isn't always what it appears to be._

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**Chapter 1: A Little Fire Lizard**

"Oh my gosh Lydia, we look amazing!"

Lydia tugged self-consciously at the way-too-short red skirt her best friend had forced her into, wishing that her efforts would actually make it longer. She frantically racked her brain for something, anything, to get her out of the mess she was sure they were about to get into.

"But Amber, I don't-"

The girl across from her, Amber, continued before she could finish her protest. "You'll so find a man by the end of today! Now come here, I need to finish your makeup."

"I can do my own makeup. Not that I _want_ to wear any, thank you," Lydia finally snapped, yanking her arm out of Amber's steely grip. They were twelve, for crying out loud!

The blond girl glared, brandishing her stick of eyeliner threateningly. "We've already went through this. If we want to get a boyfriend, we have to go all out."

"But I don't want a boyfriend," Lydia said in exasperation, shrinking back slightly. Her friend knew this, but she had been rather pushy today. It wasn't that she didn't like the idea of romance. In fact, she loved it, but until she was positive she found the right guy, Lydia was perfectly happy at home, reading her beloved books. "Why don't we just cancel the trip to Viridian, and do something fun around here instead?" _'Like reading'._

"Lydia, please. I _have_ to get Red to notice me. He could be leaving Pallet anytime now and who _knows_ when he'll come back. Obviously just trying to look good isn't enough, so I might as well try to make him jealous instead." Amber said the last part rather sadly, and Lydia couldn't say she blamed her.

Amber had been practically in love with Red for her whole life. He was her older brother Gary's childhood best friend, but had always seemed far more interested in pokemon than people. Even so, it was still an oddity that he never noticed the girl that always admired him from afar, because Amber was one of those girls who were just naturally beautiful. Honestly, Lydia was beginning to wish she would just move on, because the only thing liking Red ever brought Amber was hurt.

She was saved from answering when her room door was suddenly opened and her mom, Anna, became visible on the other side. Dark shadows outlined her eyes, a result of working long hours at the Viridian City Hospital. "Lydia, Professor-" The woman suddenly stopped, her mouth dropping open and her coffee swishing dangerously in its jigglypuff mug. "Oh. My. Mew."

She blushed brightly at her revealing attire, nervously brushing back a few strands of her picture perfect(Courtesy of Amber) brunette hair. "Doesn't she look great?" Amber squealed from beside her, temporarily forgetting their small dispute. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot." The girl excitedly grabbed a cute white hat off of the nightstand and placed it on Lydia's head.

"Well... She certainly looks...different," Anna said, seemingly uncertain on whether or not to scold the girls. "As I was saying, Professor Oak wants to see you at his lab as soon as possible, Lydia."

"Great! I mean, alright," Lydia replied, happy that she no longer had to go to Viridian dressed the way she was. At least for the time being, anyway.

Amber scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion. "Why would Grandpa want to see you?"

Anna smiled secretively. "I can't tell you that, it's a surprise! But I'm sure you'll love it." With that, the woman exited the room, likely returning to her seat in front of the living room television. The girls exchanged perplexed glances and followed her down the short staircase, Lydia careful not to let her clumsy nature send her tumbling down it. After saying a short farewell to Anna, they left the house and headed down the street to Professor Oak's lab.

Lydia, as always, admired the area around her. Pallet was a small, quaint town, surrounded by tall pines on three sides and a small beach on the other. Unlike many of its younger residents, Lydia adored the town. She didn't think it was boring(At least, most of the time), and was content to stay out of the hustle and bustle of the city. One of her favorite pastimes was cuddling up on the edge of Route 1 with a nice book so she could read and watch the wild pokemon play at the same time.

It didn't take more than a few minutes for the pair to reach their destination. Professor Oak's glorious, white laboratory was easily the largest building in town, and many considered it to be the only thing that put Pallet on the map. While Lydia was busy staring up at it, Amber brushed past her and lead them inside the automatic doors like it was her second home. In a way, it sort of was, since her grandfather owned it.

Professor Oak was nowhere to be found in the room they had just entered, although a single aide sat at his computer desk. He looked up from his typing, adjusting his classes in an irritated manner. "Hello, Amber. Lydia, the Professor's been waiting for quite a while now. Come this way, please."

"S-sorry," Lydia said, her cheeks taking on a red tint as the man took them down a long, narrow corridor. Several other rooms branched off of the hallway, most of them filled with either shelves of pokeballs or buzzing machinery. The aide finally came to a halt at the last doorway, ushering them inside before returning to his work.

Several computers lined the walls of the room, and everything about it was perfectly organized. From her visits with Amber, Lydia was able to recognize the room as Professor Oak's personal office. The man himself sat behind his desk, a kind smile on his face at her arrival.

"It's about time! Gramps, will you tell us what you wanted now?" The familiar, sneering voice brought her attention to the two boys standing before him. _'_

Gary Oak stood off to the right with his arms crossed and a displeased expression on his face. His light brown hair was spiked up all over his head, and Lydia mentally giggled at the thought that he probably spent as much time on his hair-do as his sister. His attire consisted of jeans and a violet shirt, typical 'cool' guy clothes.

The other boy, Red, was approximately the same age as Gary, although judging by his messy array of black hair and all Lydia knew about him, he cared much less about his appearance. As always, he wore his favorite red cap, hence his nickname, and a small yellow pokemon was perched on his shoulder. His pikachu.

"Patience Gary, please," the old man said, frowning at his grandson's rude behavior. It had been getting even worse lately, and over the past few years had managed to morph Red and Gary's friendship into a fierce rivalry. Recently, it had even been hard for Lydia and Amber to stand his presence for very long. "Now, I suppose you would like to know the reason I've requested all of you here."

_'Oh no. I bet he wants us to do him_ another _favor.' _Lydia liked Professor Oak, really. She even enjoyed helping him with the lab's pokemon when he would allow her too, but he always called them for the most annoying favors. For example, picking up packages for him in Viridian or delivering his mail.

"I have a favor to ask you three."

"Three? What am I, invisible?" Amber pouted, noticing her grandfather hadn't addressed her.

"Oh, well, um.. Yes. I didn't actually count on you being here..." Professor Oak said nervously, rubbing the back of his neck like he was hesitant about what was coming next. "You see... I don't believe that this 'favor' of mine would be very enjoyable for you." Lydia was now positive that he had some horrid job for them. After all, he was excluding his granddaughter for Mew's sake.

"Would you get to the point already? You're wasting my time here!" Gary butted in, his foot tapping impatiently.

With a sigh, Professor Oak reached into the pocket of his long, white lab coat to pull out three complex looking devices. Lifting the red-colored one up to Pikachu in demonstration, he said, "This is a new invention I've recently developed, but I can't complete it without assistance."

The yellow mouse pokemon tilted his head to the side curiously as the device beeped loudly. A few seconds later, a picture of a pikachu appeared on the screen. _"Pikachu, the electric mouse pokemon. If threatened, it looses electric charges from the sacs on its cheeks," _the strange machine hummed monotonously.

"Pikachu, chu!" Pikachu cried in wonder, blinking his small black eyes. Red laughed quietly to himself, giving his friend a loving rub between the ears.

Lydia was entranced by the small machine, realizing that it could possibly gain more information than any other scientific study in history. For a second, she even forgot to be embarrassed about how she was currently dressed. Noticing her interest, Professor Oak spoke directly to her. "Ahh, Lydia. I thought you might appreciate my creation. It's basically a pokemon encyclopedia, though I like to call it a pokedex for short."

She nodded eagerly, watching as he handed Red the one in his hand and Gary a blue one. He turned to her last, gifting her with the green one. "I would like for you three to travel around the region and collect data on any pokemon you capture for me. Of course, I wouldn't ask such a favor without anything in return."

The old man fished around in his pocket for a second time, pulling out three polished red and white orbs. Lydia's brain went into overdrive as he selectively handed each of them one. She was almost thirteen, and though their was no specific time for kids to go on pokemon journeys, some children left their homes at ages as young as ten. Of course, she loved pokemon, but she had always been afraid of going out into the vast world all alone.

"The pokemon I've just given you are all rare, and have the potential to become very powerful with the proper training. I selected them carefully for what I thought would best suit your personalities, and I believe you will be grateful for it in the long run," Professor Oak informed, then went off into a long speech about how they should take good care of them and what not. None of them really listened though, each of them to preoccupied with what was actually inside the pokeballs to care.

Though it felt a little foreign in her hands at first, Lydia managed to enlarge the ball and press the button protruding from its center. A beam of red light shot out from it, eventually forming into a bipedal, orange, reptilian creature. The pokemon opened its eyes, revealing two brilliant blue-green irises. Its most notable feature was the flame burning on the tip of its tail.

"Charmander," it said quietly, placing its clawed finger on its chin bashfully.

_'Aww, he must be shy like me,' _Lydia thought, thankful that they had something in common.

Somewhat hesitant that she would make a bad first impression, she bent down as close as she could to the pokemon's eye level(Not that it was to difficult, because she was rather short) and said, "Hey, my name's Lydia. Would... Would you like to be my pokemon?"

Smiling up at her, the little charmander hugged tightly onto her bare leg. Surprisingly, it was careful enough not to scratch her with the sharp claws on its hands. Lydia grinned, overwhelmed with happiness until she suddenly remembered Amber. "Hey, Amber-" She looked around the room in confusion, seeing only Professor Oak and the boys getting acquainted with their new pokemon.

"She left." Professor Oak's voice sounded from a few feet away. His expression was downcast. "I should have known this would hurt her feelings, but I stand by my belief that training pokemon isn't the right thing for her."

_'How can he say that about his own granddaughter? She probably hates me now! I know I wouldn't be to happy if my grandpa chose her over me,' _Lydia thought to herself, her annoyance becoming mixed with worry as she realized just how bad the situation probably looked to her friend.

Just when she was about to head out of the lab and start searching for her, Professor Oak spoke again. "I wouldn't if I were you. She'll get over it soon, and knowing Amber, she probably wants to be alone right now."

"Alright... If you really think so," she said quietly in response, still unsure. Charmander looked up at her curiously, wishing its new friend didn't look so sad.

Trying to distract herself, she decided to take a look at Red and Gary's new pokemon. Red and his pikachu were chatting with a green toad-like pokemon with a bulb on its back, the three of them already appearing to be friends. Gary, on the other hand, was busy critically examining a small blue turtle pokemon Lydia recognized as squirtle. Squirtle didn't seem to mind though, because the friendly smile never left its face.

"Catching other pokemon and entering any competition with them will be perfectly legal for you three now, as the pokedex doubles as your trainer's license. Well... I suppose that's it then. In case you want to give them nicknames, Lydia and Red, your pokemon are both male, and Gary, your squirtle is female," Professor Oak said, apparently dismissing them.

Lydia automatically knew she wanted to name Charmander properly instead of just calling him by his species name. However, she also wanted to name him something special instead of the usual generic fire type names, and her mind was occupied with Amber at the moment. Would she ever forgive her?

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Lydia sat cross-legged on her bed, one hand propping her chin up and the other absentmindedly running over the warm fabric of her eevee bedspread as she studied her room. Even to someone who didn't know her, it was clear that it belonged to a bookworm. Two large bookshelves covered nearly a whole wall, and various novels lay strewn across the room.

Her mother had known exactly what Professor Oak had called them to his lab for. She hadn't come right out and said it, but she wasn't surprised enough for her to have not known. Apparently, Anna liked the idea of her daughter out in the world alone, because it would help her become more _outgoing_. Enough so, in fact, that she wanted her to leave _tomorrow._

Personally, Lydia wasn't quite sure if she loved the idea or hated it. Ever since she was little, she had always loved pokemon. She loved playing with them, feeding them, or just observing them. Not to mention, it would be very nice to get out the sheltered little town of Pallet to see the world for once.

On the other hand, she had never particularly wanted to be a trainer. Not only was violence a bit of a turn off for her, but she was honestly scared of going out into the world alone. Kanto did have increasing criminal activity lately, and she was completely inexperienced with any of the essentials that she would need to travel alone. Though she didn't really have a particular career in mind yet, something like an author or pokemon nurse sounded so much easier.

She wouldn't be able to see her family for extended periods of time, either. Lydia and her parents were a simple, yet happy bunch. The thought of not seeing her mom or dad saddened her. And Amber. Amber was her best friend and had been for as long as she could remember. She would definitely be even more upset if Lydia left her behind.

"Char?" Charmander's sweet voice jolted the girl out of her thoughts. He was holding a book in his tiny arms, obviously asking her what it was.

His mind occupied, the fire lizard didn't notice his tail getting dangerously close to the shelf of books behind him. Lydia however, did. "Wait, Charmander, don't-"

Luckily, her warning managed to get him away from it, but not necessarily in the way she had intended. The sudden raising of her voice startled the already timid pokemon, causing him to drop the book he was holding and swing his tail around to hide his face.

Realizing her mistake, Lydia cautiously shifted off the bed and crept towards him. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you, Charmander."

_'Great. How will I ever manage to be a trainer if I can't do anything but scare the one pokemon I already have_?' Lydia thought, upset with herself.

Though he hesitantly moved his tail away to reveal his face, she noticed how Charmander still kept his eyes downcast. Remembering the book at his feet, she started blabbering about the only thing she could think of. "This book is called The Hobbit. It's a fantasy, and it's got loads of great characters. Like Biblo, Gandalf the wizard, Thorin the dwarf, and..."

Lydia suddenly trailed off, her honey brown eyes lighting up. "Hmm... I think I just came up with the perfect name for you, Charmander."

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**AN: **Any guesses about Charmander's new name? I'm sure it's really obvious, but oh well.

Anyway, this is my first story. Yes, Lydia is based loosely on Leaf(Her earlier outfit was based on Leaf's outfit as well), and yes, I know this isn't a very original idea. However, I've done alot of extra work with villains, and I hope you'll be happy with the additions. I also just realized that the bit at the beginning makes the characters seem older, and I apologize. I myself am a teen, and I originally was in that mindset when writing this.

Lydia-12

Amber-I think I'm going to make her 12 as well, but she is younger than Lydia.

Gary-13

Red-13. Just so you know, Red is a nickname. I just don't like using colors as real names, but Red fits him, so it became his nickname ;) I'm not sure if his real name will be mentioned in the story, because it isn't actually important.

For further information, either review, PM me, or check my profile.

-Alphinia


	2. Chapter 2: Training 101

**Disclaimer: **I do not own pokemon. Shocker, huh?

Before starting the chapter, I would like to thank my reviewers. As for any concerns about 12 year old romances, it shouldn't be to big of a deal. While it will affect some things about the plot a little, Amber has a crush on Red. That is all ;)

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**Chapter 2: Training 101**

Lydia awoke much earlier than usual the next morning. Bright sunlight filtered through her curtains, chasing the sleepiness out of her eyes and telling her that it was lovely outside. Shifting on her bed, she felt something comfortably warm against her leg. At the sight of the small charmander snoozing by her knee, his tail hanging pre-cautiously off the bed, everything that happened yesterday suddenly came spiraling back to her.

She leapt out of her bed and made a mad dash for her mirror and brush. In the process, she also startled Smaug out of his sleep, nearly even sending him plummeting to the floor. Yes, Smaug was the grand name she had chosen for her first pokemon. So what if his name-stake was a villain? He was still a character in a fantastic book, _and _he was a fire breathing dragon. Seriously, where would she ever find a better fit than that?

After forcing her brush through her unruly bedhead(She eventually had to relent and pull it into a messy bun), she stripped off her mareep pajamas and entered her closet to find something to wear. As she scrutinized her mass of clothes, Lydia's brow began to wrinkle. She could almost _swear _that her favorite jeans and a couple of her shirts were missing. Ultimately, she just grabbed a different pair of jeans and a blue pokemon league t-shirt, deciding that her mother had simply neglected to wash the others.

However, when she entered the bathroom and found her toothbrush also missing in action, Lydia retrieved Smaug from her room and stomped down the stairs into the living room. "Mom? Mommmm! Have you been prowling through my stuff again?"

Lydia immediately spotted her mother standing in front of the oven. She opened her mouth to complain about her missing possessions, but the heavenly sound of popping bacon sent her mind(And her grumbling stomach) into a daze.

Anna turned around holding an-already-prepared plate with a happy expression her face. "Good morning, honey!" Lydia inhaled deeply, enjoying the combining scents of pancake syrup and bacon. The woman lead her to the table, pushing down lightly on her shoulders for her to sit down and placing the plate in front of her.

After setting Smaug down in an empty chair next to her, Lydia went for the pancakes first. _"Mmmmh, they taste even better than they smell," _she thought to herself, reaching for more. Noticing Smaug's blue-green eyes on her food, she smiled and offered him a few pieces of bacon. He took the offer shyly, but seemed to love it after taking a bite.

"This is great mom." Lydia smiled appreciatively. Her mother was a good cook, but it wasn't often she actually prepared much of anything. "What's the special occasion?"

"The start of your journey, of course!" Anna replied joyfully, looking at her in a knowing way.

Oh. That.

She hadn't actually thought her mom would begin pressuring her to go so soon. Sure, she had mentioned that it would be nice for her to leave today, but really? Was she that eager for her to be out of the house?

"I've already got your things packed and everything, so you can get in an early start!"

"But mom, I... I don't think... What about _school_?" Lydia blurted, unable to think of a better excuse. She would never admit to her parents that she was, in fact, scared of traveling alone.

"You're a smart girl. I'm sure it'll be easy to work something out."

"But.. Have you even asked Dad about this?" She inquired, a little on the smug side. Her father was as overprotective as they came. He'd never agree to let his little girl face the world alone! The only thing that would have made the situation safer was if he were home from work, arguing alongside her.

"Of course I have! He knows how much you love pokemon, so he eventually agreed to it. With persuasion, of course." Lydia tried to conceal her disappointment, but from the look her mother was giving her, it seemed she had failed. "What's wrong, honey? Why don't you want to go?"

"I-it's not that... Really," she lied feebly, avoiding her mom's knowing eyes and flushing a bit. Why, oh why, was she such a terrible liar? Usually, it would make her feel good about herself, but at the moment, it was a curse.

"Charmander, char!" Surprisingly, it was Smaug who spoke up. Though his voice was tentative and a little awkward, she could see he looked determined. He raised a small hand to touch her arm supportively, giving her the closest thing he could to a smile. Lydia didn't need to understand his words to realize what he was saying: _"I'll protect you."_

Apparently catching Smaug's meaning as well, Anna smiled reassuringly. "See? You don't have anything to worry about. You've got Smaug with you!"

"But I'll be so lonely!" She cried, still not convinced. No Mom, no Dad, and no Amber. Could she really deal with that?

"Sweetie, you have to grow up sometime. Besides, you'll have your pokemon," Anna said, embracing her daughter in a very-much-needed hug. Slightly embarrassed at how childish she was being, Lydia hugged her back tightly. She was even further embarrassed when she began feeling a slight moisture in her eyes, but she simply turned her head so Smaug or her mother couldn't see and skillfully wiped the tears away. "Professor Oak wouldn't have asked you to do this if he didn't think you were perfect for the job."

"I guess you're right," she mumbled into her mother's shirt before pulling away. "And I have always wanted to travel..."

"Charmander," Smaug said to her softly as she went back to her breakfast. He gave her his toothy smile again, patted her on the shoulder sweetly, and also returned to his bacon.

The rest of the morning went by fast, much faster than Lydia would have liked. Before she knew it, she was standing on the edge of Route 1 with Smaug at her heels and a rather heavy side-slung bag across her shoulder. Her mother stood across from her, in front of Pallet Town.

"Why don't you travel with Red or Gary?" Her mom suggested, still worrying that she would get lonely. "I think they've already left, but I bet you could meet up with them somewhere-"

"No thanks mom. I'll be fine," Lydia cut her off before she could become to fond of the idea herself. She would probably murder Gary if she had to be alone with him for a long period of time, and Amber would probably murder _her_ if she even thought about traveling with Red. Well, maybe she wouldn't go that far, but Lydia was willing to bet some serious cash that she wouldn't be to thrilled.

"Alright then, if you're sure. I love you honey."

"I love you too, mom. I'll miss you," Lydia replied, praying that the tears from earlier wouldn't make another appearance. She began to walk away, but turned back after a couple steps. "I-if you see Amber..."

"I'll tell her you're sorry, and that you love her too."

"...Thanks." She smiled and started down Route 1 for real this time, leaving Pallet(And her old life) behind. She couldn't help but compare herself to one of the heroines from her books, just starting off on some fantastic adventure.

She really had _no_ idea what she was about to get herself into.

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After nearly an hour of walking, the duo reached the outskirts of Viridian City. Smaug, with his legs being so much shorter than hers, had gotten tired after a short while. With a little inspiration from Red, Lydia had picked him up and tentatively allowed him to ride the rest of the way perched on her shoulder(With his tail far, far away from her hair, of course).

Unfortunately, they hadn't seen any pokemon to catch for Professor Oak. So instead of going straight to the city, Lydia headed west down the route that she knew would lead to Victory Road and the Elite Four of Indigo Plateau. She obviously wasn't going all of the way there, but instead wanted to try her luck catching some pokemon. Professor Oak had asked her to do a favor, and she wasn't about to be the only one who let him down.

She eyed the grassy expanse around her. "Hmm... Where do you think we could find pokemon around here, Smaug?"

The area was dotted with clumps of tall grass and even a few trees, and two large cliffs bordered each side, the area in between them growing smaller the farther she went. The charmander didn't even have to think about his decision, immediately pointing towards a smaller section of grass and trees. Deciding that the cliffs were probably too dangerous for an inexperienced trainer such as herself anyway, she opted to go with Smaug's choice.

Luckily, she noticed three pig-like monkey pokemon hanging in the trees soon after approaching them. They (mankey, she realized) began hooting and jumping around at her arrival, making their shaggy white fur appear even messier. Smaug shivered a bit at their seemingly-aggressive nature, hiding his face in the crook of her neck. She frowned.

"Awwh, come on Smaug. They won't hurt you!" Lydia coaxed, pulling him out from behind her and into her arms. "Look, they're even kinda cute."

"Char..."

_'Funny, I thought _you_ were the one supposed to be protecting _me,_'_ Lydia thought to herself dryly, but held her tongue so as not to hurt his feelings. She was sure, or at least, hopeful, that he would get better with time.

Lydia decided that if she planned on catching them, it would be a good idea to see how much of a threat they were. The girl pulled her pokedex out of the side-pouch on her pack and aimed it at the three watchful pokemon. _" Mankey, the pig monkey pokemon. Light and agile on its feet, and ferocious in temperament. When angered, it flies into an uncontrollable frenzy." _

Ehhh, that didn't sound particularly pleasant. Did she really want to catch something she wouldn't be able to control? But then again, it might prove a good defender were she ever to come upon a dangerous situation...

Suddenly, a jet of water spurted seemingly from out of nowhere, knocking the mankey out of the tree and onto the ground with several loud 'thumps'. Lydia gasped, she herself having received a few stray drops of the cold water from the attack.

Surprisingly and not-so-surprisingly at the same time, Gary Oak emerged from the nearby bushes with his squirtle following at his feet. "What do you think you're doing here loser? Getting a taste of what you'll _never_ have?" He spat hatefully upon seeing her. "I suggest you take a good look, because this is my future, not yours."

Despite her best efforts, Lydia felt the stirring of her temper. Just who did he think he was, marching over to _her_, attacking the pokemon _she_ planned to catch, and then having the nerve to tell her she didn't _belong_ here? Really, it wasn't as if she wanted to challenge the Elite Four anyway! "What's got you so riled up? Lose something against Red again?"

The mankey in the background had finally shaken off the water gun, and they weren't happy. Smaug noticed this, and his eyes grew wide as he began tugging on Lydia's sleeve to warn her. "Not now, Smaug," she said in a forced voice, her smoldering eyes never leaving Gary.

Gary's expression darkened noticeably, revealing that her assumption had been right on the mark. "Hmmmph. As if. He's even worse than _you_," the boy replied, brattily crossing his arms and turning his nose up at her.

"I'll bet Red's already a better trainer than you'll ever be," Lydia snapped back, feeling an unusually strong desire to defend her friend(Well, they weren't actually very close anymore, but still). She was surprised at how angry she was; normally Gary's rude comments only earned an eye roll from her.

"You-" Oddly, Gary's comeback was cut short as he raised his hand to his head, rubbing it in annoyance. "Ouch!"

Soon after, Lydia felt a sharp pain in her own head. She bent down, picking up the object that had inflicted the harm on her."Ow, Gary! I can't believe you're actually immature enough to start throwing nuts at me."

Part of her wanted to throw it back at him, twice as hard.

"I didn't!" He responded, just before a flurry of nuts rained down on them. Attempting to shield herself and Smaug, Lydia glanced up at the trees. The mankey! The mankey were throwing the nuts at them, and the whole situation was all Gary's fault! He was such an ignorant, idiotic, jerk.

Luckily, the assault soon stopped, leaving both trainers free to look around. The mankey were all breathing hard now, and their nostrils were flaring. Lydia felt Smaug tremble in her arms, and she couldn't say she didn't feel the same way.

"Hah, that all you got? That didn't even _hurt_," Gary mocked, holding his fingers immaturely in an 'L' at the pokemon. Squirtle laughed along with him, apparently willing to do anything to get on her trainer's good side.

"Shut up, shut up!" Lydia hissed, backing away a few steps. The last thing she wanted was for nuts to turn into the mankey's very capable fists, and Gary's idiocy wasn't helping matters.

With a loud cry, the center mankey launched itself from the tree and straight towards Gary's face. He let out a rather girlish scream as the ferocious pokemon neared him, though it was intercepted by a strong blast of water before it could get to him. It engaged itself in battle with Gary's squirtle, and fortunately, the water type appeared to have the upper hand.

Despite herself, Lydia let out a relieved breath. That is, before she noticed the other two mankey follow the first one's lead off the tree. A sudden flash of white light briefly stunned her, but when she was able to open her eyes again, a spearow also stood (Or flew, whatever) in front of Gary.

Catching on, Lydia set Smaug down in front of her. He was obviously scared, but seemed to be intent on protecting her. "Scratch attack on one of the mankey!" she ordered, aware that he had yet to learn any fire attacks.

"Char.." He nodded. A bit nervously, Smaug raised his claws to meet the mankey's rapid kicks and punches. The fire type got knocked a good one to his gut, but was able to shake it off and swipe his own hand across the primate's face. The mankey stumbled back a few feet, clutching at its cheek and howling in rage. Its eyes narrowed and began to glow an intense red color.

"Nice one, Smaug!" Lydia cheered, oblivious to his petrified state. Then she realized that they were in the midst of a battle, and he was waiting on an order from her. "Try another scratch?"

Smaug, however, was still left defenseless from the leer attack. Taking advantage of this, the mankey rushed towards him, crouching down to deliver a devastating blow to the charmander's skull. He was sent flying backwards towards Lydia, rolling a bit before coming to a sickening halt at her feet.

She stared at his limp form, the only thought running through her head being, _'Oh god, I've killed him!'_. Fortunately, a few seconds later she realized that he was only unconscious.

Lydia picked him up in her arms, prepared to shield them from the mankey, but something red collided with the rampaging pokemon's head before it could reach them. The pokeball bounced off before abruptly sucking it inside. It shook vigorously for a few moments before going still.

Gary bent over to pick up his prize, smirking infuriatingly. "Hmmph. Catching that mankey was a piece of cake. Not that I'll ever use it," he said smugly. "You suck at battling, by the way."

Lydia wasn't able to muster up a response at first, because in all honesty, he was right. She did suck at battling, and she was such a terrible trainer that she was afraid Smaug would abandon her as soon as he was healed. "Shut up," she replied eventually, sending a weak glare at him and returning her charmander to his pokeball.

"Whatever. Smell ya' later!" Gary called, gesturing to her and walking away arrogantly.

Lydia sighed as he disappeared into the bushes again, her gaze dropping to the red and white sphere in her hand. Her reflection stared back at her sadly. "I really am a terrible friend..." she mumbled to herself, her thoughts filled with all the things that had went wrong in the past two days as she made her way to the Pokemon Center.

The girl trainer navigated her way through the city relatively easily, experienced from her many past trips to the area. Soon, she found herself passing through the automatic doors of the Pokemon Center. Somewhat awkwardly, she shuffled over to the counter, passing by a few other traveling trainers resting in the lobby.

The woman behind the counter was engrossed in a magazine, so she didn't notice her approach. Lydia had never actually seen a Nurse Joy in person before, but had witnessed them on T.V. enough to recognize her at once. "Um... E-excuse me, miss," She began nervously, looking at her sneakers.

Nurse Joy glanced up, giving her a warm smile. "Hello, miss. How can I help you?"

Gulping slightly, Lydia dropped her single pokeball into her open palms. "My charmander fainted..."

"He'll be just fine!" The Nurse Joy encouraged, turning her back and inserting the pokeball into a very complicated-looking machine. "No need to worry."

"Thank you," Lydia said appreciatively. For some reason, she had been expecting a lecture on how dumb she had been. But this sort of thing happened every day, right?

"You can just wait over there until I'm finished." The nurse pointed to the lobby, which was still occupied by a couple of trainers. Lydia nodded and shyly made her way over to them, blushing slightly when they noticed her. As stupid as it really was, she was to embarrassed to take a seat because they were all close to the strangers. She stood there stupidly for a few moments as a result, but soon the large bookcase in the corner caught her eye.

Lydia smiled to herself as she ran her fingers over the cool leather of the books, enjoying the familiar feeling. A good book was almost like her own personal drug. One title stuck out to her in particular. "Training 101'', by Candice Icestorm. Curiously, she pulled it from the shelf, briefly flipping through the pages. It contained many educational things about the pokemon world, from detailed type advantages to basic team building.

"Miss, your charmander's ready!" Nurse Joy's voice called, and Lydia returned to the counter, taking the book with her.

The pink-haired nurse sent her yet another smile, handing her back Smaug's pokeball. _'I wish I could smile as much as she does,'_ Lydia thought, mentally sighing to herself.

"Thanks again. C-could I reserve a room for tonight?" Lydia really did not want to sleep outside while she still didn't have to.

"Absolutely! Here you go!" The overly cheerful woman dug around in a drawer, pulling out a card key for her.

"And... I was wondering, if-if I could borrow this book? Just for tonight?" She held up the training book.

"Of course! You can keep it as long as you like, just make sure you turn it back in to one of the Pokemon Centers when you're done."

After sparing Nurse Joy a small smile of her own, Lydia found her way to the room she had reserved. Upon entering it, she was briefly disappointed with how tiny it was, but then she brushed it away. The Pokemon Centers offered _free_ rooms, no way were they going to be first class.

She fingered Smaug's pokeball, hesitant on whether or not she was ready to face him after the disaster that was their first battle. Eventually, she decided that it would be better to apologize sooner rather than later, so she released him onto her bed right after dropping her bag messily on the floor. Judging by the way he avoided her eyes, he hadn't forgotten anymore than she had.

"Listen, I'm sorry," Lydia said, regretfully. "I know I've been a bad trainer so far, and you're probably disappointed that you're stuck with me, but I _promise_ that I'm going to do my best to get better."

Smaug's head shot up at her, allowing her to glimpse the slight wetness in his eyes. "Char?" He sounded surprised. It took Lydia a moment, but she realized that he actually blamed himself for the loss.

"Oh, it's not your fault at all." Sniffling a bit herself, she bent down and hugged his small body close to her chest. "I guess we'll just have to get better together," she said with a smile as she pulled away. He smiled back at her, and the flame on his tail seemingly grew slightly.

Scooting close to him, Lydia propped her feet up on the bed and pulled out the book she had borrowed from Nurse Joy. So, she had discovered that maybe she wasn't gifted in the same way as Gary or Red, but that didn't mean she couldn't become a good trainer her own way, right?

Besides, she could never justify comparing herself to a true literary protagonist if she just _gave up._

**

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**AN: **Silly Lydia, thinking she can learn how to do everything through books :P Ah, who knows, maybe she can(Well, of course I know, but I can't give away the plot). I had Candice write the book since it's mentioned that she's very studious, and having a gym leader authoring a book on training makes sense, right?

Was originally going to have Lydia and Gary battle, but then decided against it. But they will later of course ;) And BOY, does Lydia suck right now. lol. Anyway, I apologize if this chapter is a bit boring, the conversation between Lydia and her mom went on longer than I had planned, as well as the ending in the Pokemon Center. That darned need for character development always gets in the way though! Hah, I also thought about trying to not make Gary so ridiculously bratty, but he acts like that in the games, so why not?

Next chapter, a very important character and plotline emerge, so be sure to check it out!

-Alphinia


	3. Chapter 3: Purposefully Accidental

**Disclaimer: **I do not own pokemon. *cough*duhh*cough*

Thanks so much to my reviewers for last chapter. And yes, I know this is an early update, but we're expecting to have bad weather all week and I can't be sure if my internet will be working Tuesday (when I'm supposed to update).

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**Chapter 3: Purposefully Accidental**

Viridian Forest was not Lydia's favorite place at the moment. In fact, that was a huge understatement.

The path was a long, winding road with many different turns, and within the few hours Lydia had been here she had already gotten completely lost numerous times. The trees were tall and broad-leafed, preventing a large amount of sunlight from reaching the damp forest floor. The limbs and bushes were untamed, and Lydia had several scratches on her arms and legs to show for it. Worst of all, the forest was crawling with bug pokemon, something she absolutely hated.

As much as she disliked doing it and as lonely as it made her feel, she had been forced to recall Smaug minutes after entering the forest. Having him on her shoulder only deterred her progress by making it harder to move around (Not to mention, she had been a bit worried that his tail would start a forest fire in the crowded conditions).

Grumbling to herself, Lydia pushed an overhanging limb out of her way and ducked under it. A few stray leaves floated down on her when she let it go, so she straightened up to brush herself off. A particularly resilient one rested on her arm, and she glanced at it in irritation. Two large, yellow eyes blinked back at her.

The girl let out a shriek of fright, frantically slapping the caterpie off her arm and dropping her bag in the process. The poor pokemon was sent flying into a nearby tree, but she was to preoccupied with picking up her scattered possessions to feel guilty.

Still shaken, Lydia pulled her bag back over her shoulder. She saw one last empty pokeball laying in the grass a few feet away. "Stupid creepy bugs..." She complained, approaching it. However, she quickly leapt backwards again when she noticed that the caterpie had gotten up and was now playfully batting at the ball with its tail.

Completely unsure of what to do, Lydia made a motion with her hands at the bug type. "Hey, get away! Shew!" Caterpie ignored her, instead pressing its nose (Not that it really looked like one to her) against the release button. To Lydia's horror, the ball opened and sucked the worm inside, barely shaking before going completely still.

Treating the ball like it was an explosive device, she hesitantly picked it up. _'I caught it?... But I didn't even want it...' _Lydia thought, scrunching up her eyebrows. Suddenly, she realized just how pathetic the situation really was. She had finally caught her first pokemon, only she hadn't really caught it. It had captured itself, and she was actually to afraid of it to even introduce herself.

Though she was seriously considering just leaving the pokeball there and pretending that the whole thing never happened, Lydia clipped it to her belt beside Smaug's pokeball anyway. Leaving that caterpie in the pokeball alone would be a completely wrong thing to do, and she didn't want to have it haunting her conscious forever. She had already had a bad enough start as it was.

"So I'm assuming you were the one making all that racket over here?"

Lydia spun around to face the girl who had spoken to her. She was dressed mainly in dark colors, if not a bit boyishly. Her short, fiery red hair was tied into a low side ponytail, and her odd golden eyes glowed peculiarly in the light.

"Umm, y-yeah, I was actually..." Lydia admitted sheepishly, blushing. "Sorry about that."

The girl laughed. "Don't worry about it. I was really just wondering if you'd like to battle, since you don't look like one of those annoying little bug catchers that you normally see around here."

Lydia froze, her last battle still fresh in her mind. Sure, she had read a bit last night about battling, but would that make enough of a difference? She didn't really like violence that much in the first place, and she definitely didn't want to see Smaug hurt again. Despite her doubts, she said,"O-ok. I guess I could use some practice."

"Great," the girl said, backing away a few steps to give them room. "Come on out, Gastly."

A floating black face materialized next to her, shrouding the area around it in a creepy, purple fog. Lydia recognized the pokemon , but pulled out her pokedex just in case. _"Gastly, the gas pokemon. Almost invisible, this gaseous pokemon cloaks the target and puts it to sleep without notice."_

Deep in thought, Lydia stowed the pokedex away and pressed the release button on Smaug's pokeball. He appeared before her, seeming a bit nervous to be facing such a strange opponent. Even so, she was _not _going to mess this up so awfully again. "Listen, Smaug," she whispered so only he could hear. "Be careful not to look at that thing too closely alright? If you do, it could put you to sleep."

He nodded, looking determined. "Char!"

The redhead girl smirked confidently, saying, "Ready? Fantastic. Gastly, start things off with Lick!"

The gastly floated straight towards Smaug, its tongue outstretched. The charmander stepped away to avoid to hit, but before he could retaliate with his own attack, the ghost type abruptly dove straight towards the ground and vanished. He glanced around nervously, waiting for his opponent to reappear.

"Um, just be ready for anything ok? Get it with a Scratch attack as soon as you see it," Lydia ordered, slightly apprehensive. The other trainer laughed to herself at some private joke, irritating her slightly. What was so funny about hiding from her opponent? Lydia thought it was a cheap shot, personally.

A loud, booming laugh sounded throughout the forest, and even though Lydia knew it was Gastly, she found herself becoming slightly creeped out. A few tense seconds passed before the ghost suddenly sprang up behind Smaug. Luckily, the charmander sensed its presence before anything could happen, and he abruptly turned around, raking his sharp claws straight between the gastly's eyes.

The ghost type... Laughed? It was completely unaffected by Smaug's attack, which had been spot on.

Lydia felt like face-palming herself. _'Of course! Ghost types aren't affected by normal attacks!' _

She was honestly at a loss for words. What was she supposed to tell Smaug to do now? While she stood there, dumbfounded, Gastly opened its mouth wide and licked him right across the face. The fire type shivered in blatant disgust, trying to shake the saliva off himself.

Gastly began laughing again, and Smaug's eyes narrowed uncharacteristically. He took another swipe at the ghost with his claws, but just as before, the attack passed through it harmlessly. "Charmander!" Smoke was literally coming out of Smaug's nostrils at this point, and to Lydia's surprise, he opened his mouth and let loose a small stream of flames straight into the gastly's grinning face.

The ghost vanished briefly out of surprise and pain, but re-materialized a few seconds later looking anything but happy. "Ghastlyyyy," It growled, obviously trying to intimidate Smaug. Knowing him, it probably worked.

"I see you've discovered a new attack. Guess that means we'll have to get on with this, then," the other girl said, snapping her fingers. "Gastly, Hypnosis!"

Gastly smiled creepily, its eyes glowing a deep crimson color as it began to chant rhythmically. Black circles shot out from its body, expanding as they got nearer to Smaug. The charmander attempted to look away as his trainer had commanded, but he obviously didn't do it in time, because Lydia noticed his eyes were beginning to droop.

Before he was able to drop and fall asleep, a menacing voice sounded from somewhere nearby. "I'm afraid this is as far as your battle's going to go, children."

"What? Who do you think you are?" It was the redhead girl that spoke, glaring into the nearby trees. Lydia felt her heart beat faster in anticipation as she wondered the same thing.

A tall, lanky young man emerged from the shadows. He had raven black hair, and dawned everyday clothing (Lydia had almost been expecting a Team Rocket uniform). He was perfectly average looking, and in all honesty didn't look to scary.

"I'm the guy you're about to hand over that charmander to." The man directed his reply at Lydia. He seemed amused that they had even dared to question him. "That's a rare pokemon, and it will fetch quite a price if it's sold to the right buyers."

Lydia picked up the tiny lizard at once, as if she could really protect him if the situation called for it. "N-no way." Her voice cracked slightly from her nervousness, but she was still somewhat proud of her response. Hey, at least she hadn't run away screaming.

The man's eyes darkened. "You have no idea who you're dealing with here. I suggest you hand over the pokemon, _now_."

She was surprised, to say the least, when the girl beside her snorted loudly. "As if. _I _suggest that you turn your sissy self around and go right back where you came from, so we can continue our battle."

The man sneered at her angrily, pulling out a pokeball. "How dare you talk to _me_ like that! I happen to be an _Elite_! You'll regret it when you're drawing your last breath!"

_'An Elite huh?' _Lydia wondered, vaguely recalling the name from a news report several weeks ago. Apparently, they were a rising criminal group that stole pokemon like Team Rocket, but it was composed of only a few highly skilled trainers.

"You don't scare me," the redheaded girl retorted, still staring the man down.

Well... Lydia was pretty scared.

"Ugh! You insolent little brat! Get them, Muk!"

Lydia had never encountered a muk before, and frankly, she knew she never wanted to again after the man released his. Though its stench alone was absolutely revolting, its appearance didn't help it out in the popularity department to much either. It was basically of a big blob of purple sewage (Also known as crap) with eyes.

"Gastly, Lick that muk!" Gastly, who had already abandoned its attempt to put Smaug to sleep, flew towards Muk with its tongue hanging out of its mouth in preparation. Surprisingly, the muk made no attempt to dodge or counter-attack, opting instead to let Gastly lick it freely.

As its tongue swept over the opponent's body, Gastly froze in mid-lick, its eyes growing wide in horror. Then, it fled from attack and gagged dramatically. The muk's trainer laughed coldly, saying, "You really think you can take on my muk? Then by all means, give it a try. Send out all of your pokemon if you want, I'm sure it won't make a difference."

The redhead scowled. "Gastly! Don't be a wimp," she said harshly. Her pokemon looked down in shame, and she glanced at Lydia. "What are you waiting for? Help me fight this guy!"

"R-right," Lydia stammered, setting Smaug down. She really didn't want him to get closer to that guy than necessary, but it wasn't like she could send out Caterpie. "Ember."

Smaug quickly complied, spitting a few balls of fire towards Muk. Unfortunately, the poison-type barely even flinched, seemingly absorbing the flames into its gross mass. The charmander seemed dismayed that his attack had next to no effect, though he didn't let up. Out of the corner of her eye, Lydia noticed Gastly beginning another Hypnosis attack.

The man also seemed to notice this. "This is pathetic. Muk, Sludge," he ordered, faking a yawn.

Muk immediately hurled two blobs of toxins from its body, the first striking Gastly to break it out of its trance, and the second striking Smaug. The substance was sticky, and remained on both the pokemon's faces like glue.

"Charmander, char!" Smaug cried, frantically clawing at the covering over his eyes as the man approached him.

Lydia gasped, at a loss for how to save him. A few seconds later, common sense returned to her and she pulled out his pokeball, recalling him just in the nick of time. She was already quite attached to him, and had no desire to let him be taken away by a strange criminal.

The man glanced up at her, a furious expression on his face. "You'll regret that!" he snarled. "And here I was, hoping I wouldn't have to get my hands dirty. Oh well."

She backed up a few steps as he approached her, but soon found her progress deterred by the base of a large tree. However, just before he could grab her, several massive boulders suddenly flew from the air, effectively cutting him off. Something rustled through the underbrush, and the ground shook a bit, putting Lydia in a brief daze.

A massive onix became visible on the opposite side of the boulders, and she could barely make out the form of a man riding just below its horn. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she connected the rock shower to the pokemon. A hand touched her shoulder, causing her to jump slightly. Luckily, she found herself looking into the slightly concerned expression of the girl she had just been battling.

"Are you okay? You look terrible," she said.

Lydia didn't know whether or not to be offended, so she simply nodded and turned her attention back to the scene in front of her.

The young man with the onix appeared to be very angry about something as he looked at the two girls before him. Up close, Lydia thought he looked sort of familiar. "He got away," he said furiously. "Are either of you injured?"

"No. But it wouldn't have hurt anything if you would have gotten here sooner." The redhead beside her said, crossing her arms.

"You two should have been more careful," he advised, ignoring her comment. "As the gym leader of Pewter City, it's my responsibility to watch out for any rookie trainers nearby. Do you really think I want a couple of deaths on my plate?"

Neither of the girls said anything, the possibilities of their situation finally sinking in. It was only the second day of her journey, and yet, Lydia had already come close to being murdered. Maybe this whole journey business was even worse than she had imagined, and she was a fool to even attempt it.

Maybe she wasn't cut out to be a trainer at all.

The spiky-haired man (Brock, she realized) sighed, massaging his temples. "I'm sorry for being so rude. It's been stressful lately, with the Elites and all. Can I make it up to you by escorting you the rest of the way out of the forest? Riding on Onix is much faster than walking."

"Yes!" The other girl exclaimed at once, already climbing onto one of the rock snake's lower boulders. Lydia blushed slightly, despite the fact that she didn't really know her any more than Brock did. She looked at her expectantly. "Well? You coming or what?"

"Umm, sure," Lydia replied, crawling up the rocky surface. Her foot slipped a bit, but the redhead grabbed her arm before she could make an embarrassing scene by falling all the way off.

"My name's Cassandra by the way."

"I-I'm Lydia," she replied softly, grasping the rock beneath her as Onix began to move. Riding on a giant rock was anything but comfortable. She tried shifting her position a bit, but her butt remained sore no matter how she sat.

It suddenly dawned on her just how tired she really was. Lydia had never been a particularly active girl, having spent a great deal of her time sitting around reading books. Still, it was sad that she was so worn out after only two days of walking. Apparently, her aching muscles were some form of payback for not exercising regularly.

"So, either of you lovely ladies taking the gym challenge?" Brock asked, probably trying to break the awkward silence.

"Nahh, I just wanted to travel a little. The best way to do that was to become a trainer, so here I am," Cassandra said. Something flashed in her golden eyes, but it was gone so quickly Lydia thought her mind was playing tricks on her.

The redhead looked at her expectantly, and she realized they were waiting on her answer as well. "Oh, no way!" She said hurriedly, shaking her head and blushing at all the unwanted attention. "I'm just collecting data on pokemon for Professor Oak."

Yeah right. As if she'd ever be a competent enough trainer to stand a chance against a gym leader. Judging by her battling skills thus far, it wouldn't be happening anytime soon.

"Oh. Well if either of you are ever interested, I would still love to share a few training tips sometime," he said, flashing them an odd smile.

"No thanks," Cassandra snorted quietly.

Lydia scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion. She had no idea why a gym leader would be interested in helping them in person, but it was a nice offer. Why was Cassandra so mean about it?

Brock seemed to deflate a bit at the obvious rejection. "Oh... That's to bad," he said with a sigh. "And I know I've said this before, but you two should be more careful. Crime's reaching an all time high lately, and it isn't safe for rookie trainers to travel alone."

"I can take care of myself," Cassandra said firmly.

"That's what you think. But I bet you'd be alot safer if you at least had someone to travel with. You too, Lydia," Brock replied. "If you don't have anyone else, why don't you two just travel together? It would benefit you both."

Lydia fittled with her ponytail awkwardly, focusing her gaze on her lap. It wasn't that she didn't like Cassandra or anything, but she didn't know her. At all. Cassandra had no reason to want to travel with her anyway.

Yet, she couldn't help but feel that Brock was right. If anything, a traveling companion would make her feel much safer after what had happened today. She didn't want to spend the rest of her journey constantly afraid.

"Well... That would be fine with me," Cassandra said hesitantly. "But only so no one else will bother me about it! And if it's alright with you, of course," she quickly added, directing the last part at Lydia.

"Ok.." She agreed quietly, trying to give the other girl a small smile. In all of her awkwardness, it probably came out more like a grimace. Cassandra grinned back at her.

Lydia couldn't say she regretted Brock's interference on the matter, because heck. Even the best protagonists needed help getting through their problems sometimes.

**

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**AN: **As you can see, alot happened in this chapter. Lydia made her first catch, found a traveling companion, you found out Lydia ISN'T planning on taking a gym challenge(For now;)), and an important antagonist group was introduced.

By the way, Does anyone have advice on writing battles? Because I really suck at them :/ Keep in mind, I'm not always going exactly by levels here on moves or evolutions (Though I will take them into account. Smaug will not be evolved into a charizard by the time they're in Mt. Moon, if you get my meaning.)

Anyway, I hope you guys like Cassandra. I think Lydia needs a tough friend who'll actually get things done

-Alphinia


	4. Chapter 4: The Shorts Maniac

**Disclaimer: **Pokemon is not mine. Oh, and I don't own To Kill a Mockingbird or Harry Potter either ;)

Thank you so much, reviewers :) Is it to pathetic to say I was ecstatic to see even my 10th review? I thought I was lucky to get one review per chapter!

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**Chapter 4: The Shorts Maniac**

Lydia quietly closed the door behind herself and padded across their room in the pokemon center. She had just gotten back from the shower rooms across the hall, and her hair was wound up in the towel on top of her head. It had never been such a relief to feel clean, and she was somewhat worried about how she would cope out in the wilderness without the constant luxury of showers.

It was still very early in the morning, probably around six or seven. Cassandra's bed was unmade and unoccupied, letting her know that the other girl was either in the cafeteria getting breakfast or taking a shower herself. Smaug was curled up asleep on her own bed, but upon her entrance, he raised up and blinked sleepily at her.

Not yet feeling particularly hungry herself, Lydia retreived a pack of pokemon food from her bag and poured some in a bowl for him. "Hungry?" She asked.

"Char." He nodded, crawling off the plain beige comforter. The charmander picked up a piece of the kibble, experimentally chewing it. After a few seconds, he smiled slightly and continued eating.

Lydia's amusement was drained away when her eyes caught the lone pokeball sitting on her nightstand. She very well knew Caterpie was inside, and probably very hungry... After all, she hadn't once let it outside its pokeball since the accidental capture.

_'Maybe... Maybe I could just use a P.C. and send it to Professor Oak,' _she thought, but quickly rejected the idea. How pathetic would that be? It was like saying, "Hey, I'm scared of my own pokemon (That actually caught itself, by the way). Could you feed it for me?"

Lydia was positive there was no chapter in Training 101 about introducing yourself to a pokemon you didn't like.

This was something she would have to go through her own way. Deciding to see if the pokedex could tell her anything, she found it in her bag and looked up the section on caterpie (Which had filled itself in after she captured it). _"Caterpie, the worm pokemon. It is covered in green skin. When it grows, it sheds the skin, covers itself with silk, and becomes a cocoon."_

Well, that was all well and good, but it didn't help her out at all. After pressing a few more buttons, she somehow came upon an individualized page for her own caterpie. _'Moves known... Tackle and String Shot. Hmm... And it's a girl. At least I won't offend her by calling her a boy,_' she thought dryly, laying the green device on her bed in disappointment.

Lydia carefully picked up the pokeball and backed up a few feet. Gulping, she aimed it at the bed and pressed the button in the center. A familiar beam of red light shot out, quickly materializing into what was, in reality, the last thing she wanted to see.

"Pieeee!" The worm exclaimed gleefully upon seeing her. She wiggled off the bed and crawled towards her, but Lydia instinctively jumped backwards in fright.

Caterpie looked... hurt? She wasn't aware that bugs had feelings... But the gathering tears in the pokemon's eyes made her feel guilty. Very guilty.

"Umm.. H-hey, are you hungry, Caterpie? There's some food over there. I'm sure Smaug would be happy to share with you..." She said awkwardly, but to her dismay, Caterpie just ducked her head down into the plush carpet.

Honestly, did she have to make such a terrible first impression on every pokemon she got? The universe hated her. Remembering what got her out of a similar situation with Smaug, she said, "Caterpie, why don't we give you a real name? That way you can join the group, um... properly."

The bug type looked up with interest, though her eyes remained watery. "Hmm... How about...Ummm..." Lydia couldn't think of anything. With Smaug, the perfect name had just come to her at a convenient time. Besides, what in the world could be a decent name for a _worm_?

She racked her brain for her favorite female literary characters, deciding that she should stick with the theme she had started with Smaug. As awful as it was, only characters she didn't like came to her. Like Nagini, Lord Voldemort's ekans. Hey, a worm, a snake, what was the difference? Well... alot. Like how a snake was probably more appealing. They didn't have those creepy little legs.

Well, Caterpie acted almost like a little kid, so she could always go with a child character. "How about Scout?" she offered, actually genuinely liking the name and character. Caterpie-um, Scout-nodded at once, but Lydia had the sneaking suspicion that she would have went with whatever she suggested.

Scout began crawling over to her again, this time succeeding in climbing straight up her body with the suction cups on her feet (Very creepily, in Lydia's opinion) and coming to rest on her shoulder. Lydia barely suppressed a shiver of disgust. In order to keep her composure, she quickly pulled the pokemon off of her and set her down next to Smaug and the bowl of pokemon food.

"Heh.. There you go Scout, I bet you're pretty hungry..."

"Piii!" She cried happily, gorging herself on the food. Smaug eyed her weirdly, but didn't seem as put off by the show as Lydia was.

The door opened, and in stepped Cassandra, who was munching on a biscuit. "Hey, I didn't know you had a caterpie," she said, her breakfast still in her mouth. "I thought you'd be the type to be scared of bugs!"

Lydia awkwardly laughed along with her. Yep, the universe definitely hated her.

* * *

"Why don't we check out the museum before we leave?" Lydia asked a few hours later. She, Cassandra, and Smaug were making their way through the city and towards Mt. Moon. According to Cassandra, her best bet on catching new pokemon was to travel around to new places (Though Lydia was beginning to wonder how she would ever even encounter many if they didn't stay in one place for at least a few days).

"No way," Cassandra scoffed. Seeing her slightly disappointed expression, she added, "That place is for science freaks, not pokemon nerds or bookworms like you!"

Yet again, Lydia didn't know whether or not to be offended by her words, so she decided to take it all in stride. "Alright.." The famed rocket exhibits and such didn't interest her much, but she had really wanted to see their new fossils. She had heard on a news report that they now had some from all over the world.

"But actually, if you don't care I kind of wanted to check out something else. While I'm busy, you could go try to catch some pokemon," she suggested.

"Umm.. Ok." Lydia blinked, looking at the girl curiously but not asking questions.

"Great! We should meet at the pokemon center outside Mt. Moon at around..." She checked her watch briefly. "Say one o'clock?"

Lydia nodded in agreement, and Cassandra gave a short wave of farewell before walking away. What was her rush? Deciding it was ultimately Cassandra's business (No matter how curious she was becoming), she glanced down to make sure Smaug was following her and headed towards Route 3.

"Charmander!" he piped up after a few minutes of silence, tugging on her pants in excitement and pointing towards a large building. It was very... Peculiar. The whole thing was shaped like a giant rock, and a rusty sign hung over the door. Lydia was able to make out the words 'Pewter Gym' even from their distance.

"Sorry Smaug, but I don't think we'd stand a chance against a gym leader... Besides, we're just doing a favor for Professor Oak, remember?" she told him, surprised that he seemed to be interested in challenging a gym. It made sense, she supposed, because many pokemon were known to be very competitive when it came to battling.

"Char..." He sighed sadly, but still trailed after her when she continued walking.

They reached their destination shortly after. Route 3 appeared to be relatively long, and was composed of several slopes and steep embankments. Not particularly in the mood for rock-climbing (Or any form of extreme hiking, for that matter), Lydia opted to try her luck in the lower areas alone.

Surprisingly soon, she noticed a group of pidgey gathered around some berry bushes and quietly approached them. They made several variant chirping sounds to each other, some of them even going as far to preen another's feathers. It was all very heartwarming, but she had seen pidgey interact like this before back home.

Smaug was tensed beside her, ready for an order. An attack was on the tip of her tongue, but Lydia stopped mid-whisper. She sighed, and the little lizard looked up at her curiously. The pidgey all seemed so happy. It wouldn't be right for her to forcefully take any of them away from its friends and family.

She couldn't do it.

"Sorry Smaug," she said quietly, sitting down beside him. "I can't do it. I'm a complete failure as a trainer." She sighed, tracing little patterns in the dirt underneath her with her fingers. What was her problem? Trainers captured pokemon every day, it shouldn't be such a big deal. But for some reason, it was to her.

"Char, char," he consoled, patting her on the shoulder.

The two of them sat there for quite a while like that, observing the pidgey and simply enjoying each other's company. While watching the pidgey, Lydia noticed something fascinating(To her, anyway). There were two different types of berries in range of them, which she recognized as the Pecha and Oran respectively. Oddly, as they foraged for seeds, they seemed to be largely in favor of the Orans.

She knew for a fact that Pechas were very delicious, and were one of the few berries consumable to all humans and pokemon. Naturally, being the curious (And admittedly somewhat nerdy) girl she was, Lydia was interested in their preferences. Enough so that she wished she had somewhere to write it down...

"I LIKE SHORTS!"

Lydia gasped in fright, nearly falling over, and Smaug's tail flame doubled in size (She was very lucky to avoid getting burned, actually). The pidgey flew away at once, cawing at them accusingly. Once they had regained their senses, the pair turned around to face the perpetrator.

It was a young boy. Judging by his posture, he had just leaped out of the bushes to scare them. He let his raised arms fall to his sides, snickering immaturely and declaring,"Hah, you should have seen your faces! That's what you get for being sinful enough to wear..._pants_." He shuddered.

Lydia and Smaug exchanged identical freaked-out glances. Was this kid a psycho or something? She honestly didn't know what to reply to that.

"I knew you'd be jealous of my shorts," he continued obliviously, but suddenly gasped. "Did you want to _steal _my shorts? But they're mine!"

"Umm... I have no intention of stealing your... clothing," Lydia eventually said awkwardly.

"That's what they all say..." He nodded knowingly. "I, the Great Calvin, challenge you to a battle. I can't ignore your intentions of taking my prized possession!"

"B-but..." Lydia began protested, but stopped when Smaug gave her a look. "Ok."

The boy, Calvin, made a large, twirling gesture as he tossed a pokeball onto the field. "Enter, Cheese!" A rattata burst out, exposing its large teeth in an over-exaggerated hiss.

_'Hah, and I didn't believe it when I heard pokemon act like their trainers,' _Lydia thought, pulling her own pokeball from her belt. She was hesitant to do it, but she might as well get it over with while she was still on a brave streak from this morning.

Smaug made a sound of protest, obviously surprised and upset that she wasn't planning to use him. "Sorry buddy, but I can't only depend on you if I want to get stronger," Lydia said to him apologetically. He sighed, but nodded and stepped back to give her room. She knew experienced trainers had to be skilled with all of their pokemon to become so competent.

"Go Scout." For the first time, Lydia actually tried throwing her pokeball like most other trainers did. It opened up mid-air, released her caterpie, then bounced gently back into her waiting hands. She blinked, actually enjoying the odd sense of exhilaration it brought her.

She should really try that more often.

Scout seemed thrilled to see Lydia again, and waved excitedly at her with her tail. Forcing a smile, she half-heartedly waved back. Despite her obvious reluctance, the caterpie wasn't deterred in the slightest and Lydia was actually beginning to feel like she was making progress.

She was silent as she waited for Calvin to make the first move. She knew it was risky to give him an opening to attack, but she had learned from her previous battles that she didn't do well by rushing into the fight. Besides, Training 101 _clearly_ said that every trainer battled at their best differently.

"Cheese, Quick Attack!" The rattata complied to his trainer's orders, ramming into Scout so fast that he became an invisible blur. He didn't stop there, continuously darting around her quickly enough to remain out of attacking range.

"Try a String Shot," Lydia called out, hoping to slow the other pokemon down.

Scout eagerly obeyed, spitting a few sticky strings out towards her opponent. To Lydia's dismay, the pokemon still managed to avoid it with his quick attack and land another hit on Scout at the same time. She tried thinking quickly, knowing she wouldn't last much longer at this rate.

"string shot again. Aim everywhere, it doesn't matter if you hit it!" Scout once again listened perfectly, seemingly having full faith in her trainer still.

Calvin laughed. "Girl, I am the Great Calvin. Taking your anger out on grass isn't going to beat me!"

Lydia simply smiled, thinking to herself, _'That's what you think.'_

Suddenly, Cheese became entirely visible again. He seemed to be tugging at his back foot in irritation, trying to shake off a white wad of Scout's String Shot. However, his attempt backfired when he gave a particularly strong pull and landed in yet another pile of white substance.

Her plan actually... Worked. A voice in Lydia's head cheered, shocked at her success. "Now, Scout! Tackle!" The worm pokemon cheerfully shoved into the rattata with all her might. Due to the pokemon's current state of immobility, her hits were direct and he dropped into a dead faint after only a few tries.

"I...won..." Lydia said to herself in disbelief. A slow grin spread across her face, highlighting her features. "I won!" She repeated happily.

"Y-you've cheated!" Calvin exclaimed angrily, recalling his pokemon. "I demand a rematch!...To bad I don't actually have anymore pokemon." His slouching posture suddenly sprung up again in alert. "But I still refuse to let you have my shorts!" With that, the young boy charged off into the bushes and out of sight.

Lydia was still to thrilled to really care. In all her joy, she bent down and hugged Smaug tightly. After a few seconds, she realized that she was probably close to strangling him and she loosened her grip. "I'm sorry Smaug, I'm just so excited!" She giggled, rubbing her hand lovingly over his warm scales and setting him down. He beamed up at her, obviously glad to see her so happy.

"Piee.."

She glanced up at the sound, suddenly remembering Scout. The caterpie's head was drooped in disappointment. Lydia winced, realizing she probably (and rightly so) felt neglected. After all, Smaug wasn't the one who just won her her first battle, yet he was the pokemon she had celebrated with.

Scout had given her the victory, so didn't she deserve some credit?

Lydia approached her, twirling a stray brown lock that had fallen out of her ponytail. "Hey," she said softly, getting on her knees. "You... You did really great out there."

It wasn't a lie. Scout looked up at her, large amber eyes sparkling with hope. Extremely hesitant, Lydia inched her hand downwards and brushed in over the worm's skin. To her surprise, it wasn't slimy or anything disgusting like that, but she couldn't honestly say the thought of touching Scout didn't still give her the creeps.

Slowly but surely, another true smile crept onto Lydia's face.

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**AN: **I had some trouble with this chapter. Not with writing it exactly, just with what to put in it (This is why it's so short and kind of fillerish). So of course, I had to take the chance to add in our favorite shorts lover! :D

Concerning Amber: Yes, she will be returning. But, it will be quite a few chapters before we see her again. Many people seem to be interested in her, and I'm glad!

**Important note:** I have a poll on my profile page related to this story, and I would appreciate it if you vote. Your votes won't decide anything for certain, but they may slightly influence my decisions for the future of the series. As in, probably the second Enigma story, not this one. But I may have hints leading up to it in this one, so I would like your opinions. If you have any questions concerning this, I would be happy to answer them through PM:)

-Alphinia


	5. Chapter 5: Hurt Her, and Burn

**Disclaimer: **I don't own pokemon or The Inheritance Cycle.

I tried something a little different in this chapter with the pokemon. Basically, a small section of it's in Smaug's POV rather than Lydia's, so I translated the pokemon speech. Just in case you get confused, here are some guidelines that will apply to the entire story:

"Human Speech", _"Pokedex Speech", 'POV character's thoughts', _"-Pokemon's translated speech-"

This is the first of other POVs I might use (Such as Cassandra or maybe Amber), but I probably won't have a need for it unless something particularly important is going on when Lydia isn't around.

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**Chapter 5: Hurt her, and Burn**

Lydia checked her pokegear.

It was nearly twelve o'clock, an hour before she was supposed to meet Cassandra. She mentally kicked herself, realizing that this also meant that she had let _two _hours fly by without catching a single pokemon. Frustrated at herself for not having a better sense of time, she continued wandering down Route 3, though this time making sure to keep her eyes wide open for any possible captures.

"Keep a lookout for any pokemon, ok Smaug?" She said to the little charmander at her feet. He nodded, a fiery determination clouding his gaze.

A gang of mankey hooted down at them from some trees as they passed, and Smaug pointed them out to her. Lydia shook her head slightly, still not quite over their previous battle with that species. She was a little more confident in their abilities now, but she wasn't ready to go that far out of her comfort zone yet.

They continued down the path, and before long, they had to relent and begin climbing up the steeper slopes. It was extremely tiring, and the pair soon began to pant with exhaustion. Unfortunatly, the trip had to be made if they ever wanted to reach Mt. Moon(Not that Lydia was really to keen on going through there. She had heard it was a very dark and scary place).

A few minutes later, a bird pokemon she recognized as spearow flew out of some nearby grass. Smaug immediately shot an ember towards it, striking its wing. The bird cawed angrily, its beady eyes narrowing. Excitedly, Lydia threw the empty pokeball she already had in her hands towards it.

With a flutter of its wings, the spearow floated above the ball, causing her throw to miss completely. Crowing in a way that made Lydia swear it was mocking her, the bird flew over the trees and out of sight. She huffed in annoyance and motioned for her partner pokemon to follow as she made her way further up the mountain.

She _would _catch Professor Oak a pokemon today. It wouldn't hurt to have another member on her team anyway, as two pokemon was a rather low amount.

Their progress was soon halted again when a small, pink ball rolled out from the bushes in front of them. It stopped rolling, and uncurled to reveal the two large, azure eyes and catlike ears of a jigglypuff. "Jigg?" It said cutely, cocking its head to the side and putting one of its stubby hands to its chin. Its voice was very melodious, almost as if it was singing and talking at the same time.

"Awww! It's so cute!" Lydia squealed, going into one of her rare girly modes. Adorable pokemon were one of the few things that ever triggered those in her. "Smaug, we have to catch it!"

At those words, the jigglypuff suddenly curled up again and began rolling away. Instinctively and determined to catch it, Lydia chased after it. Professor Oak was depending on her to get him some data, darn it! Plus, that jigglypuff was _really _cute. She barely paid attention to where or how far she went as she followed the little pokemon.

Noticing it was being pursued, the jigglypuff just as suddenly stopped rolling and faced her. Mischief glinted in its huge eyes as its opened its mouth and began loudly singing a beautiful melody. Subconsciously, Lydia stopped running, soothed by the music. A lazy smile decorated her face, and ever so slowly, she felt herself being lulled into a deep sleep.

* * *

Smaug was frantic.

His girl had left him, and now he couldn't find her! Of course, he assumed it was on accident, but it wasn' t like her to mindlessly chase after things. He knew she wanted to help Professor Oak. He wanted to help Professor Oak too, because the man had always been kind, provided him with food, and even hatched him from his egg, but he _still_ didn't think it was a good idea for her to run off without him for the sake of research.

What if she was in danger? It was his job to protect her! An image of sweet, innocent Lydia being mauled by a savage, wild nidoking flashed through his mind. Sure, she had Scout, but she was so small. _'Even smaller than me,' _he thought bitterly. One day, he would become a strong charizard, and he would be able to protect her from anything.

Not like his suckish attempt to save her from the mankey.

"-Lydia? Lydiaaa!-" He called, trying to cup his clawed hands around his mouth. Then, he realized how useless his cries probably were. She wouldn't be able to understand a word he was saying. His tail drooped in defeat, the flame flickering slightly. A sound drifted to his ears, and he perked up a bit as he strained to listen. Maybe it was Lydia!

Wait... That sounded like crying. No, he didn't want it to be Lydia at all.

Despite every bone in his body telling him that it could be dangerous, Smaug followed the sound into a patch of tall grass. He couldn't pass up any chance to find Lydia, and this was the best one he had at the moment. The small flare of hope within his chest diminished when he pushed through the grass and saw the cause of the noise.

It wasn't even close to being his trainer. Instead, a small, blue, rabbit like pokemon was sprawled out on the grass. Little spines covered her body, and her crimson eyes were soaked with tears. She stared up at him in fear.

"-Are you all right?-" Smaug asked her, admittedly more out of obligation than actual interest. He was far to worried about where Lydia was to care as much as he probably should.

"-T-they took my mother,-" she bawled. "B-but they didn't want me.-"

Smaug gulped. "-Who?-"

"-Humans,-" Nidoran said, sniffling and standing up on shaking legs. "-B-but not normal ones. They c-came through here, a-and caught a bunch of strong pokemon. T-then they went into the m-mountain.-"

He would have tried to comfort her in some way, but her spikes(Which he was pretty sure were toxic) caused him to keep his distance. Instead, he said, "-I'm so sorry... I wish I could help you, but I have to find my girl...-"

Smaug awkwardly made to walk away, but she suddenly called out, "-W-wait! Please d-don't leave me here alone! I d-don't like being lonely.-"

"-Umm... But I have to go. My girl's probably looking for me right now.-" At least, he really hoped she was. He knew he wasn't the best charmander, but he liked to think that she cared about him anyway. Nidoran's eyes began to tear up again, so he hurriedly added,"-I... I guess you can come with me, though..-"

"-R-really? Thanks,-" she said gratefully. If only he knew _where_ exactly he needed to go.

"Miss? Miss! Wake up, I need to let you in on the greatest deal in all of Kanto!" Smaug looked around at the abrupt noise. That was definitely not Lydia, but it was a human. Maybe he could help! He suddenly started through the bushes, and Nidoran followed closely behind him. The underbrush soon vanished as they entered the clearing. The sight that met his eyes made him want to sigh in relief and scream in outrage at the same time.

Oh, he had finally found Lydia. She was laying peacefully in the grass, and strangely, she appeared to be fast asleep. The problem lay with the _grown man_ standing over her. It didn't look like he was trying to help her, either.

Smaug felt the beginnings of an ember attack stirring in his throat.

* * *

Lydia blearily blinked open her eyes, groaning and shifting her body a bit. Her head was _killing_ her. With a jolt of fear, Lydia realized she had no clue where she was. She quickly sat up, rubbing her head all the while.

"It's about time you came around, little lady!" A man exclaimed loudly in her ear. She jumped, startled at his closeness. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in a fabulous deal!" Did he have to talk-no, yell- so loudly? It was only making her headache worse.

The man ignored her displeased expression, yanking open his jacket. The action shocked her, until she realized he was only showing her that the inside of the material was lined with at least thirty pokeballs. Lydia was positive that was illegal. "I-Yeeowww!" He suddenly broke off, clutching at his hand in pain.

An orange blur appeared, coming to a stop between them. "Charmander, mander, char, char, charmander!" He cried angrily, pointing an accusing claw at the man.

"That monster burned the _hell_ out of my hand!" he yelped, sucking on his fingers. "You need to control that thing!"

Smaug gave him a scathing look that clearly said, "And I'll be happy to do it again, bub." Once he seemed to realize that the man wasn't actually a threat, he turned and embraced Lydia tightly around her middle. Still thoroughly confused, Lydia hugged him back.

A few seconds later, the memories came flying back to her. The jigglypuff! A swift glance around the area told her it was long gone, so she sighed sadly. She let go of Smaug, tiredly getting to her feet and attempting to dust her now-muddy pants off.

Guilt was beginning to settle in. It had been very stupid of her to run off like that. Judging by Smaug's relieved expression, he had lost sight of her and gotten very worried. "Sorry, Smaug," she apologized. His small smile let her know she was forgiven.

"_Sorry?" _the man (Who's presence she had temporarily forgotten) yelled. "I'm the one you should be apologizing to!"

Smaug opened his mouth slightly, releasing a few thin wisps of smoke into the air. The man gulped, backing away a few steps. "I am sorry about your hand, but you surprised him," Lydia said defensively, ignoring the previous exchange.

"Whatever. So as I was saying, what I have in these pokeballs is only the most magnificent pokemon in all of Kanto! And for the incredibly low price of _500 pokedollars_!"

Lydia looked at the man with renewed interest. "Um... So what is it?" She asked, suddenly feeling very shy to be talking to a complete stranger. Adults were even worse than other kids for her to get comfortable around.

"Magikarp!" he said dramatically.

Lydia raised an eyebrow. Magikarp? Really? Everyone with a brain knew they were most useless pokemon in existence. Sure, they evolved into the awesomely powerful gyrados, but they weren't exactly a rare sight in the wild. If she really wanted a magikarp, she could just use a fishing rod and catch her own. No way was she spending 500 of her pokedollars on it. She could already barely afford to live off of what she had!

"Uh, no thanks," she said, stepping around him. He really looked like he wanted to stop her, but apparently, his wariness of Smaug was still strong, because he jumped back about a foot when the little fire lizard walked by him.

"Fine! I'll just be waiting around here! When you realize what an opportunity you just passed up, you'll come running right back!" He called after her, but she ignored him.

"Nid?" Lydia stopped in her tracks, glancing around curiously. The head of a female nidoran was poking out of a bush, her ruby eyes locked on Smaug. She slowly stepped out, shaking a few leaves and twigs from her body. He approached her, and began explaining something to her in poke language. The pokemon whimpered sadly, her large ears sagging to the ground.

Lydia hesitantly approached them. Smaug wouldn't let the other pokemon hurt her, even if they were friends. She didn't know what connection he had to the nidoran, but they obviously knew each other. Perhaps they had met up when she and Smaug were separated?

Nidoran noticeably shrunk back when she saw the girl near them, but Smaug said something else to her and she relaxed slightly. Lydia crouched down beside the two, hoping that the pokemon wouldn't be as afraid of her if she wasn't towering over her so much. "Will... Will she let me pet her?" Lydia asked Smaug, unsure of what else to say. Part of her wanted to catch the pokemon, but something was obviously wrong with her at the moment (If not physically, emotionally).

After exchanging a few more words with the nidoran, Smaug nodded. Lydia gradually reached out her hand, so as to give her a chance to back away if she wanted to. She didn't look like she completely trusted the trainer, but she didn't look aggressive, either. A few moments later, Lydia closed her eyes nervously and brushed her fingers across Nidoran's soft blue fur.

The poison type cooed softly, seeming to enjoy the warm gesture. Surprisingly, Nidoran moved forward and nuzzled her head into her hand. Lydia opened her honey brown eyes and smiled as sweetly as she could at the pokemon. "Hey girl, how would you like to battle me?" She really wanted to take the nidoran with her, but she knew it wouldn't feel right to forcefully catch her after befriending her like this.

Nidoran whimpered, shaking her head 'No' rapidly. Lydia sighed in disappointment, but continued petting the pokemon. "That's ok...Well I guess we better go on," she said, standing up. "Come on Smaug, Cassandra's probably already waiting on us."

Giving Nidoran an apologetic glance, Smaug did as his trainer said and joined her as she began climbing the mountain again. One of the pokemon's feet moved forward, as if she wanted to follow them but was holding herself back. Lydia hated leaving her there. The selfish part of her (Admittedly, a larger part) really wanted to catch her, but another part of her just felt bad for taking away the nidoran's new friend.

Lydia grasped at the grass above her, tiredly hauling her body off the small ledge and onto the next one. As she lay there, panting, she realized it wasn't just the 'next' ledge after all. It was the highest one! Suddenly feeling more refreshed, she climb to her feet and looked around. A pokemon center stood a few yards away from her, but that wasn't what caught her attention. She and Smaug stared at the scenery in awe.

Due to Mt. Moon's high evaluation, she could see for miles and miles around. Most of the area was covered by tall, lush trees, but she could barely make out an ocean in the distance. Pewter City was easily visible, nestled between the forests and probably only a couple of miles away. She was pretty sure it was the tall buildings of Viridian that she saw past a particularly large portion of trees, and she vaguely wondered if her mother was working away in the hospital at the moment.

A sudden feeling of homesickness washed over her. This was easily the farthest she'd ever been from home. She hadn't realized exactly how much she missed Pallet Town until now, having been distracted by her more immediate problems. But _Mew_, how she was missing it.

"Ni, ni, doran, ni!" Something suddenly rammed into Lydia's leg(Rather hard too...). She looked down, and though she was shocked at what she saw, her racing heartbeat began to slow. It was just Nidoran, and she was hugging onto her calf very tightly.

"B-but..I thought you didn't want to battle?" she stammered, utterly confused.

Smaug, who had understood Nirodan's previous words, smiled and pointed to an empty pokeball on her belt. Lydia blinked at him, but unhooked it anyway. "What?..." She _really_ wished she could understand poke speech right about now. Like that girl in one of her fantasy books.

Nidoran sighed, and began craning her neck upwards as if she was trying to reach the device. "Um... You want this?" Lydia asked, lowering her hand so that the pokeball was within her reach. Showing off her large buck teeth in a smile, Nidoran reached forward and pressed the release button in with her nose. The pokeball opened and sucked her in, the click of a successful capture sounding without a single shake.

Lydia smiled, though she was still surprised that any wild pokemon would want to go with her so willingly. She immediately released Nidoran from her pokeball and picked her up, so she could face her eye to eye. "W-well, I'm Lydia," she said, giddy with happiness. Sure, she still hadn't _technically _caught a pokemon, but she now had a new team member and friend. "But I guess Smaug's already told you that. Hmmm... I think you need a name, too."

Nidoran nodded her head in agreement. Much faster than it had for Scout, a name came to her. It was a powerful, noble name(Or at least, the name of a powerful, noble character), and one she really hoped Nidoran would uphold.

"Do you like Arya?" she asked, hopefully. Nidoran purred, signifying that she too liked the name.

"Lydia, there you are!" Cassandra's voice suddenly yelled. The girl was emerging from the pokemon center doors, an annoyed look on her face." You're really late by the way. I was just about to come look for you!"

"S-sorry..." Lydia replied sheepishly, blushing a brilliant tomato red.

"Hmph." Lydia was reminded briefly of egotistical, idiotic boys, but she quickly reminded herself that Cassandra was speaking. "At least you caught a new pokemon. It's pretty cute."

Lydia nodded, smiling.

"Let's hope it's strong, too. Tomorrow morning, we set out through the interior or Mt. Moon, and I've heard a few rumors about that place. Not positive rumors, by the way."

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**AN:** I don't particularly like this chapter myself, but oh well. It moves the story along, and I guess all authors dislike some parts of their writing to an extent. As always, I would like to thank my dear readers :) You guys are awesome, particularly my reviewers! I'll definitely have to make some sort of mention for all those who reviewed in the last chapter (If I ever manage to get there. It sure doesn't feel like I will right now! lol)

Also, I promise that Lydia will actually catch a pokemon soon. I have my reasons for what I'm doing, and if you're curious feel free to ask. Which, I highly doubt any of you care enough to ask.

About her lack of confidence/training: She will start actually training her pokemon within the next few chapters. Remember, at this point, she doesn't really want to do anything other than travel around to help Professor Oak. She's only just beginning to realize that the world is a dangerous place, and that she would need a stronger team to protect herself from people like Team Rocket.

**Don't forget to vote in my poll!**

-Alphinia


	6. Chapter 6: Mt Moon Mysteries

**Disclaimer:** Pokémon isn't mine. End of story.

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**Chapter 6: Mt. Moon Mysteries**

Viridian Forest had taught Lydia that she didn't do well in damp, dark places, and Mt. Moon was no exception. Though the walls of the cave were lined with dim, blue-tinted lights, it was impossible to see more than ten feet in either direction once they traveled far enough inside. It was also filled with the shrill shrieks of zubat, which she had already tried pitting each of her pokemon against so as become more in tune with their individual abilities.

At the moment, they were all safely tucked away in their pokeballs because her traveling companion had convinced her that walking would be easier without having them out to keep up with them. She was right, of course, but Lydia still missed Smaug. Without his comforting presence, she rarely strayed far from Cassandra's side.

One thing was very odd though. Lydia had been hoping to try her luck against another trainer or two for a change, but so far, they hadn't encountered a single one inside the mountain.

"Why the _hell_ don't they have normal lights in this place?" Cassandra exclaimed suddenly as they reached yet another dead end, throwing her arms up in the air. "I can't see anything! I swear, one of us is gonna break our neck before we get out of here! _If_ we get out, that is."

Lydia flinched noticeably at the other girl's dirty language, causing her to roll her eyes. "It's a special technique they use so they don't disturb the wild pokemon," she said anyway. Cassandra gave her a look that obviously meant she hadn't really been expecting an answer. "W-what? I read it in an article about clefairy once."

Cassandra didn't reply, instead leading them down a smaller, more enclosed path. It opened up into a slightly larger cavern with a plump hiker standing in the center of it. A small waterfall dripped in the corner, its faint echo drifting hollowly throughout the uncomfortable silence.

The man looked a lot more prepared for a trip through Mt. Moon than them. He was slightly hunched from his bulging backpack, and a vest equipped with various supplies rested over his shoulders. He dawned a yellow hard-hat on his head, the small light on it like a beacon in the dark.

"Hello, young 'ens," he said. Though he made an effort to sound cheerful, it wasn't difficult to see the worry in his eyes.

"We need to get to Cerulean City. Do you know the way?" Cassandra asked, staring determinedly at his feet. Lydia curiously followed her gaze, allowing her to notice the top of a latter beneath the hiker's heavy boots.

The man hesitated. "Well... yes, I do. But I'm gonna have to ask you to wait and leave Mt. Moon for now."

Cassandra's eyes narrowed into golden slits. "Oh? And why is that?"

"There are dangerous people in the cave." He seemed even more hesitant now, but he continued anyway. "They've stolen many trainers' pokemon, but I think they're really looking for something else. And don't take my word for it, but I'm pretty sure the people I saw were Team Rocket."

"Cassandra... Maybe he's right. Maybe we should just wait," Lydia whispered quietly into the other girl's ear. The last thing she wanted was to encounter more criminals. Brock wasn't around to protect them anymore, and she didn't want to have all of her pokemon taken away from her.

Or worse, be murdered _and_ have all of her pokemon taken away from her.

"I think we can handle it," Cassandra said loudly to both of them. Lydia shook her head in exasperation. She liked Cassandra, but maybe traveling someone so bold was a bit on the risky side.

The man still shook his head 'No'.

"But... If you really won't help us, I guess we have to try to find a way on our own. _Maybe_ we won't run into Team Rocket while we're wandering around. _Lost_." Cassandra sighed sadly, running her shoe over the hard dirt ground. She turned away, as if she was about to leave.

"W-wait!" the hiker called out frantically, though somewhat unsure. "I'll help you!"

The redhead spun back around, beaming up at him. "Great!"

He sighed, stepping aside. "The other trainer wouldn't listen to me either, so I might as well help you too. Just take this ladder down and you should be able to find your way from there. It'll be a very long walk, and you should remember that I warned you about Team Rocket."

They stepped past the man, and Lydia quietly mumbled her thanks to him as Cassandra started straight down the ladder. She gulped a bit when it was her turn, but followed her friend's lead despite her pathetic fears. The ladder was wooden, old, and very thin, causing her to feel slightly claustrophobic on her way down. She stepped (Or stumbled, was more like it) off of it and the pair continued their trek through the mountain.

The hiker hadn't lied when he said it was a very long walk. The two girls traveled for hours, talking about anything and everything. Lydia learned Cassandra's hometown was Azalea, Johto, and that she was fourteen years old. Her residence immediately sparked Lydia's interest in what she knew about the pokemon there. Unfortunately for her, her companion seemed reluctant to talk about her past life, so she dropped the subject.

Surprisingly, Lydia's shy nature was already beginning to melt away as she opened up to the other girl. She didn't know if it was something about Cassandra herself or simply because of their situation, but she was glad she didn't feel quite as awkward around her anymore. Sometimes, it took months or even years for Lydia to truly become comfortable around someone.

Back in Pallet, Amber had really been the only true friend she had. In the past, she had also placed Gary and Red in that category, but now she wasn't so sure about them. Gary was always mean to her, and Red was... well, so distant. Pikachu was really his best friend (And now maybe Bulbasaur was, too).

"Dam-" Lydia shot Cassandra a pointed look. "..Wow._ Wow_. It's already eleven. Maybe we should stop for the night," Cassandra said, putting away her phone.

Lydia absolutely did not want to camp out, much less in some dark cave she couldn't even see in. The fact that Team Rocket could be wandering around was just icing on the oh so lovely cake. Although, she _was _exhausted... She tried to think of something to say that wouldn't sound too wimpy, but nothing came to her. "But what about Team Rocket?"

"We'll be okay," Cassandra encouraged.

Lydia observed her for any sign of self doubt, but she found none. The more she thought about it, the more logical the other girl's assumption seemed. They were both very tired, and it would be ridiculous for them to keep walking all night. Team Rocket was probably the most dangerous group in Kanto (Though the Elites seemed to be nearing their level at a frightening rate), but they had been walking all day and hadn't caught so much as a glimpse of the familiar black uniform. Perhaps the hiker was mistaken, or was just being cruel and trying to scare them.

Noticing her hesitation, Cassandra added, "If you want, we can have someone keep watch all night. I could make Gastly do it, he doesn't have to sleep since he's a ghost."

"...Alright," Lydia said eventually, against her better judgment.

"Finally. I'm surprised you even agreed at all." Cassandra stopped walking and opened her bag to get out her necessary supplies. Lydia came to a halt beside her, shuffling around in her own bag until she found her large fleece blanket. She spread it on the ground, eyeing it doubtfully. Sure, a tent might have been a bit improbable, but couldn't her mother have at least stuffed a sleeping bag in there somewhere? It was cold inside the cave, and she would probably become the equivalent of a pika-pop by the time morning came.

Lydia continued looking through her bag, wondering if she needed anything else. Changing into her pajamas would be nice, but she was far too self-conscious to strip in front of Cassandra and it would be stupid (Or possibly, dangerous) to go somewhere by herself to change. She was sure she could survive one night without that luxury, at least. Deciding that the only thing that was needed was the blanket, Lydia zipped her bag back up and tossed it on the ground at her feet. She then plopped down on her blanket and stretched her worn muscles.

Cassandra sat down on her own blanket a few feet from her, placing a small pile of sticks in between them. For a moment, Lydia wondered why the heck she had sticks in her bag, but soon she realized that they would be able to start a fire with them. Cassandra looked at her expectantly, compelling her to speak. "Oh, good idea. Do you have matches?" Lydia asked.

"Nope. But you have a charmander."

"Oh, right." Lydia blushed slightly, fumbling with Smaug's pokeball. A flash of white light briefly highlighted the cave around them, startling a few zubat from their positions on the cave ceiling. Smaug appeared, still seeming a little shy around Cassandra. "Could you use ember on those sticks so we can start a fire?"

The charmander nodded his head, eager to help her out as always. A small stream of fire spewed from his mouth, immediately catching the sticks ablaze. "Thanks, bud," Lydia said appreciatively, petting his head. She almost returned him in the fear that Team Rocket would come by and steal him, but decided against it. If Team Rocket was really in this cave, they would probably steal her pokemon regardless if they were in a pokeball or not. If anything, she would probably be safer to have him already released.

As promised, Cassandra soon released her gastly to watch over them. The two girls, along with Smaug, cuddled up in their blankets for a well-earned rest. It wasn't the most comfortable bed Lydia had ever had, but she had a feeling that she could fall asleep anywhere at the moment and be happy. She lulled off watching the gentle flickering of Smaug's tail flame, oddly contented by the feeling of Gastly's gaze on them.

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"Gastlyyyyy, gastlyyyy, gast."

Lydia squirmed around in her blanket, frowning. Her back was aching, and her neck was cricked at an uncomfortable angle. Still, she closed her eyes tightly and pulled the soft material further over her face. It was freezing! She felt distinctive warmth around her stomach, so she snuggled closer to the heat and willed the annoying sound to go away.

"Mander, Char!" Her source of heat was abruptly gone. She reached out for it instinctively, but her attempts were in vain. Not yet completely aware of her surroundings, she sat up and blearily looked around.

Suddenly, it all came back to her and she jumped to her feet in an uncoordinated tangle of arms and legs. The dim light of the cave gave away no hints what-so-ever relating to the time, but judging by how tired she still was, it was earlier than she should have woken up. Either that, or she was still suffering from her terrible lack of prior exercise.

To her immense relief, Smaug was at her feet and Cassandra was still safely tucked away in her makeshift bed. Gastly was visible just above her. Lydia ran her hands through her untamed bun, thanking Mew that everyone appeared to be safe. She had been sure that Team Rocket was in the very process of stealing their pokemon.

Relief quickly abandoned her just as quickly.

Now, Lydia was a very intelligent girl. Being so smart often lead to her over thinking things, which in turn sometimes lead to her being a very paranoid person. All the paranoia in the world couldn't have prepared her for what she saw.

A group of three large men sprinted down the pathway towards them, a smaller woman trailing a few feet behind them. As they approached, Lydia noticed many emotions on their faces, ranging from anger, to disbelief, to even fear. But nothing caught her attention like the crimson 'R' on their otherwise midnight black clothing. Bright lights occasionally flashed in the direction they were coming from.

Instinctively, she pressed herself against a cave wall to get out of their way. To her surprise, the four continued past her without so much as a second glance. Her ears caught a few stray curse words mumbled under their breath, but she was otherwise un-phased by the brief encounter.

Cassandra was stirring in her sleep by now. She sat up from her blankets, looking anything but happy and glaring at everything in sight. "What the hell is going on?" she grumbled angrily, attempting to rub the sleepy out of her eyes.

Lydia stared at her blankly for a moment, but flinched when yet another stray rocket darted past them. He clutched a pokeball tightly, the veins in his hand looking ready to burst from his apparent anger. "Hey guys, wait for me!" he shouted, also disappearing into the shadows.

She abruptly realized her breath was caught in her throat, so she released it to avoid dying from lack of oxygen. "I-I… I don't know. I think something happened down there." She pointed her finger in the direction of the flashing lights. They seemed to have stopped after the passing of the last man.

Cassandra was already on her feet and returning Gastly to his ball. She attached it to her belt and said, "Come on. We need to check it out."

Lydia gave her a look that clearly said she thought her friend was insane. "N-no! And why are you returning Gastly, whoever-or, whatever-" She shuddered. "-got them could attack us too!"

"Don't be like that."

Lydia blinked slowly before opening her eyes to give Cassandra what was hopefully a brave look. She was _tired_ of being such a pushover. The redhead had led her through the cave despite her worries, but now she was putting her foot down. It would be beyond stupid to go charging off into possible danger like that. She shook her head determinedly.

"Lydia, think about it. We can just go look. Chances are whatever it is won't even see us, and it's really something dangerous, we can make an easy run for it with our pokemon in their balls. It's our duty as trainers to do things like this. If it's that dangerous, _we're_ responsible for warning the general public about it. Besides, it was fighting against Team Rocket. It can't be so bad."

Lydia didn't know how Cassandra could sound so reckless and yet so, so convincing at the same time. She would have to ask for lessons some time.

She felt her basic morals churning within her. Trainers _were_ supposed to be brave role-models for society, not cowards like her. But they weren't supposed to be plain out stupid, either, like Cassandra was acting at the moment. Her previous answer remained firm.

Cassandra looked both surprised and disappointed. "…Fine. You stay here, and I'll go check." She turned her back and walked away without another word.

Lydia stared after her blankly for a good five or six minutes. She was shocked that the other girl had actually rushed into something so blindly. Nor could she believe she had let her. Guilt began churning around in her stomach.

Twirling her hair, she exchanged a look with Smaug. The bond they had had achieved over the past few days was obviously forged well, for they each came to a mutual decision without any communication apart from locking their eyes. It was a decision, no matter how hesitant on both parts. They knew it needed to be done.

What they hadn't agreed on, was Lydia pulling out his pokeball to return him.

"Charmander, char, charmander!" he said, uncharacteristically defiant.

It touched her that he was so concerned for her safety, but returning him was the only option she had. "Look, I'm about to do something really dumb, maybe absolutely stupid, but I'm not an idiot. You know your tail would give us away in this dark from a mile away." He was still shaking his head in disagreement when the red beam engulfed him.

Lydia soundlessly crept in the direction she had previously been so determined to stay away from. Her honey brown eyes darted anxiously over ever inch of the cave that was visible, straining to see better in the dim blue-tinted light. She jumped at every little sound, even the faintest cry of a distant geodude or a drop of water falling to the ground.

Needless to say, she was as scared as a rattata caught in the talons of a fearow. Maybe even more scared.

A hand suddenly shot out from a crevice in the cave wall, yanking her inside and muffling her scream. "Shhhh!" Lydia soon realized her feared captor was only Cassandra. The other girl slowly removed her hand from over her mouth and motioned for her to listen. Once she strained her ears hard enough, she was able to overhear the middle of a conversation.

"Of course, you wouldn't be a _real_ Elite. You're nowhere near strong enough. Just an ally, if you will. We need someone to call upon if we encounter a bad situation." The voice was unfamiliar, and a strange mix between intimidating and girly at the same time.

"I would _never_ join someone like you. The way you treat pokemon…" The person, who was obviously male, sounded revolted. And that voice… Lydia knew that voice!

"Shame. You have the makings of a skilled trainer, and the fact that you're such a cutie only makes me sadder. Especially since now that you know so much, I'll have to kill you."

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**AN: **Well, I had the choice of making this chapter really long or a bit on the shorter side. As a result, you have my first real attempt at a cliffhanger. Anyway, I would like to say that I finally, finally managed to take the time to edit out all those errors pointed out to me in the last five chapters. I'm so sorry about that.

I have a question! How do you feel about Smaug's personality if he evolves into a charmeleon? I really like his personality the way it is, but I just can't picture a timid, shy charmeleon. Suggestions?

Any guesses involving the outcome of this little conversation, or who exactly was involved?

**Vote in my poll, **_**please!**_

-Alphinia


	7. Chapter 7: The Red Rescue

**Disclaimer:** I do own a few copies of the pokemon games, but unfortunately, I don't own pokemon. *Cries*

Thank you so, so much for all the reviews last chapter. You guys are amazing!

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**Chapter 7: The Red Rescue**

Lydia Leaf normally considered herself a smart girl. She was smart alright, but sometimes when a situation took a turn for the worse, she didn't know what to do. Well, maybe it was more like she lost her cool.

Ok, so she completely freaked out.

Her instinct told her that she should hide away in the tiny crevice until the danger had passed. Her heart (And not to mention, her morals) was telling her to get off her butt and save her friend. Her brain, a rather important organ of hers that had abandoned her more often than usual lately, went into overdrive.

Beside her, Cassandra tensed, as if she was about to jump from their hiding spot. Lydia latched onto her sleeve, leaving her temporarily immobile. She didn't doubt the other girl could break her hold if she really wanted to, but for the moment Cassandra settled for an irritated look. "Ok, I'm really not for dying today either, but we have to do something."

Lydia stared at her for a few seconds. The shouts of battle outside caught her attention, bringing her back to the crisis at hand. "We… We can't just let him be murdered."

"Exactly. Which is why we have to go help. Now." Cassandra looked at her like she was an idiot.

"I know, but we can't just run in there without thinking things through, either." As she said this, Lydia strangely began to compare the situation to a pokemon battle. Personally, she was turning in favor of a well-planned strategy to win, as opposed to rushing in with only the use of power. The more she thought about it, the more she realized it wasn't such a crazy comparison after all.

Lydia suddenly allowed a small smile to creep onto her face. "I think… I think we might have to come up with a plan."

"Yeah, well, let's hear it already."

"….I don't exactly have one yet."

Cassandra rolled her eyes, obviously getting more fed up with the delay by the minute. "Alright, just forget it. We've got to go help, now!"

Thankfully, the redhead at least took to liberty of peaking around the corner before revealing their hiding spot. "There's an older teenage girl and a boy battling. The girl has a… golduck. And I think the boy has a pikachu. "

Lydia frowned, worried. She had sincerely hoped the trainer in danger wasn't who she originally thought it was, but now she was positive it was Red. He was close with her once upon a time, and she still cared about him. Amber-she winced as she thought her name, realizing she had barely spared her best friend a thought after getting past Viridian- maybe loved him? He _couldn't_ die.

She crept up beside her friend to watch.

"You're lucky I'm the 'weakest' Elite, trainer-wise anyway. I'm more of a diplomat, if you will. But don't worry; I'm still far stronger than those measly Rockets you scared off. I'll crush you like a caterpie, " the girl said, her golden tresses bouncing as she walked. Lydia noticed a shiny golden 'six' embroidered on her shirt, and that she looked maybe seventeen or eighteen.

Red frowned slightly, but still looked more determined than ever. Pikachu was in front of him, covered in scratches and panting heavily. He didn't look like he was about to give up on his trainer, though.

"I've already beaten two of your pokemon. You're done," the girl said, smirking and swinging her hips.

"You haven't even seen Pikachu's signature move yet. Volt tackle!" Lydia was surprised (And admittedly, a bit impressed) with the confidence he commanded his pokemon with. It wasn't a cocky confidence like Gary's, but more of a quiet one that showed he was fully comfortable with his abilities as a trainer. It was almost like he had been battling all his life, or that he was purely _meant_ for pokemon training.

Pikachu… practically _glowed_, as his body became fully immersed within golden electricity. Lydia was almost blinded by the force of the light that came as he bulleted towards Golduck and rammed into it. When the light finally dimmed, the water type was laying unconscious beside a cave wall. Pikachu stood strong for a moment, but a few seconds later his legs began trembling furiously and he simply gave out from exhaustion.

Red immediately ran over to his fallen friend, scooping him up into his arms. "You did great, Pikachu," he murmured quietly, rubbing his hand gently across the unconscious electric mouse's fur.

"_What?"_ the girl shrieked furiously, returning her golduck. "What was that? Rookies _do not_ defeat my golduck! There's something weird about that pikachu!"

"No matter. You now have no pokemon, but I do. Ninetales, burn him alive!" She released one of the most beautiful pokemon Lydia had ever seen. It was a cream, fox-like pokemon with nine luxurious tails. As attractive as it was, the creature looked surprised to be released onto a battlefield, like it was more used to being pampered as opposed to actually battling.

"What are you doing? Flamethrower!" It also looked a bit hesitant to actually attack a human, but at the girl's urgings, a flame began burning in its throat.

Lydia and Cassandra were both trying to squeeze themselves out of crevice now, each of them rushing to reach the battle before it was too late. Lydia clumsily groped for her pokeballs, not really caring which was which at the moment. She just had to send one of them out to _stop_ that ninetales.

Unsurprisingly, at the sight of the two frazzled girl's suddenly bursting into the cavern, the flamethrower died in the ninetale's throat and it looked at them oddly. "What now?" the blond girl snarled at her pokemon. Then, she finally noticed Lydia and Cassandra. "Who are you? What do you think you're doing?"

"_Lydia?"_ Red asked at the same time, thoroughly confused. "What are you doing here?"

She wasn't quite sure what to reply to that, so she attempted to muster a small smile (And probably failed miserably). Then, she focused her attention back on the more important exchange before her.

"Our names are none of your damn business. But we're here to stop _you_-" Cassandra began talking slowly, as if the Elite girl was a two year old. "-From going wacko and killing _him_. Well, I guess it's too late for the wacko part, but we're still not letting you kill him."

Lydia, for once, was at least halfway glad for her smart-aleck reply. Why? Because she herself tended to be speechless during times like these. Even though she had specifically told herself not to rush in, they had gone and rushed in without a single clue as to how they were going to save Red (Or, she realized suddenly, themselves).

The girl stared at them for a moment, anger and shock written across her pretty face. A few moments later, she forced out a laugh. "Oh? You two won't beat Ninetales. Handsome over there just got a lucky shot." She seemed more than a little sour over her recent loss.

Lydia clutched the pokeballs in her hands a little tighter. In her previous haste to get them off of her belt, she had made the rookie mistake of mixing them all up. She had no idea which one was which…

Beside her, Cassandra had already ordered her gastly into battle. Lydia was beginning to feel the pressure on herself now, so she frantically tried to make the choice. She considered just sending them all out at once to give them the upper hand, but she was positive that she wasn't able to command three pokemon together yet anyway. She eventually opted to go for the ball in the center, hoping that luck was on her side and it was Smaug.

The familiar flash of white light filled the cave, and Arya's blue form materialized before her. She breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't Smaug, like she had been hoping, but at least Arya didn't have Scout's weakness to fire.

At the sight of her two opponents, Ninetales confidently stepped forward and fanned out its tails, as if it was trying to intimidate them with its beauty. Gastly responded by laughing and disappearing mysteriously into the ground, like he had with his battle against Smaug. Arya didn't look like she particularly wanted to battle, but she readied herself for an order anyway, seeming unaffected by the display.

Soon after, Ninetales continued its flamethrower from earlier. Magnificent fire spewed from its mouth, briefly dazzling Lydia and making her wonder if Smaug would ever be able to summon flames like that. Arya, meanwhile, was busy attempting to get out of the attack's path. Unfortunately, she failed and her fur was left with some heavy singe marks.

"Quick attack," the Elite ordered lazily, as if she already knew she had the entire battle won. Ninetales nodded, nimble on her feet as she began rushing around Arya in a blur.

As she watched her pokemon struggle to get back up (Harmed from both the flamethrower and the current barrage of quick attacks), Lydia felt a flash of irritation through her worry. Cassandra's gastly was hiding somewhere, while Arya was left to take all the damage! Despite how wrong it all seemed to her, she didn't voice her thoughts aloud. Instead, she said, "Arya, try to make sure Ninetales hits your back next time, ok?"

Lydia thought she saw the poison type give a weak nod, but she couldn't be sure. Briefly, she wondered if she sounded as cool as Red did when he ordered Pikachu to use volt tackle.

Probably not.

The next time Ninetales rammed into Arya, the nidoran did manage to position herself so her opponent hit the spines on her backside. The cream-furred pokemon recoiled in pain, a small wound in her side oozing a thick, purple liquid. Lydia let a small smile of excitement grace her face; Her strategy actually worked. Again! Then she felt bad for enjoying the pokemon's pain, but still.

Lydia wasn't sure if it was out of anger about the poisoning or just to please its master, but the ninetales began a second flamethrower attack almost immediately. This one seemed even stronger than the last, and Arya fainted the moment the attack ended.

As she recalled her, Gastly finally made his grand reappearance. The ghost type distracted Ninetales and its trainer with a series of his favorite lick attacks, which apparently thoroughly disgusted the prissy pokemon.

Lydia looked at her two remaining pokeballs for a second before finally deciding to just send them both out this time. She was beginning to worry she wouldn't be able to win even with the help of the poison, but felt her chances might be better if they overpowered the ninetales with sheer numbers. Besides, what use would Scout be to her alone, anyway? The caterpie would probably faint from one of Ninetales' weakest flamethrowers.

Both Smaug and Scout soon appeared alongside Gastly. Smaug's eyes widened at the sight of his advanced opponent, but he tried (Key word, tried) to keep a brave front for Lydia's sake. Scout, the one who really should have been afraid, simply let out a happy cry and greeted everyone in sight.

Ninetales began making an odd coughing sound, and it took Lydia a moment to realize it was _laughing_.

She glared at the fire type, highly offended at how it was acting towards her pokemon (And in some aspect, her). Did they really look that weak? Sure, they weren't the strongest team around yet, but she loved them none the less.

To her further annoyance, Gastly retreated into the ground- again.

"Scout, use string shot."

Ninetales quickly shook itself out of its laughter, expertly sidestepping the wad of gunk spat in its direction. However, a small portion of it lodged itself onto one of the fire type's tails. Lydia found much amusement in the pokemon's look of utter disdain, but she couldn't say she didn't agree with it. Even though she was learning to tolerate Scout, she still found bugs highly disgusting.

"Ninetales, darling. Burn those small fries to a crisp," the Elite number six said, batting her eyelashes as if she just said the cutest thing in the world.

"Smaug, um…" Lydia fumbled over her words a bit, desperately trying to save Scout. She was sure the worm wouldn't survive an attack like flamethrower. "Counterattack with your ember! Scout, you try to get away from Ninetales."

While Scout cheerfully began working her many little legs as fast as she possibly could, Smaug obediently pitted his own flames against Ninetales'. Unsurprisingly, his Ember was weak against the flamethrower and was easily overpowered after only a few seconds.

"Now, Gastly!"

Cassandra finally chose to have her pokemon join the fun again. The ghost appeared from a nearby wall, a big, creepy grin on his face. "Gastlyyyy," He chanted, floating over to Ninetales and licking its precious fur again. The pokemon cried out in disgust, breaking its concentration on the flamethrower and missing both of Lydia's pokemon completely. She flashed Cassandra a relieved look to show her appreciation.

Instead of focusing on either Smaug or Scout, Ninetales was now busy taking its rage out on Gastly. The poor ghost was burned rather severely several times before he finally fell, just like Arya had. Cassandra quickly returned him, frowning at his easy defeat.

Fortunately, Smaug had taken the chance to creep closer to their opponent while it was occupied. He raised his claws high, and they shimmered silver just as he swept them over the other fire-type's flank. Lydia realized he had finally learned Metal Claw, which would definitely make him more useful against a wider range of opponents.

Ninetales snarled, outraged, and then gave him a face full of flames. Smaug let out a weakened cry at the close-ranged attack, but managed to weakly find his feet. The Elite girl smirked. She said, "Ninetales, finish it now with a frustration."

Ninetales reared back on its haunches slightly, its form becoming highlighted by a barely visible black aura. Its expression became entirely unpleasant (Well, more so than it already was), and it attacked Smaug with every natural weapon it had. Teeth, claws, even its superior weight. The charmander was easily knocked down from the force of the attack, and though he made an obvious effort, he didn't get up again.

Lydia nervously pulled out his pokeball and returned him as quickly as she could. The last Elite she encountered had full intentions to steal him, and she didn't want this one to get the same idea. Lydia, Cassandra, and Red all exchanged uneasy glances as she clipped the ball to her belt.

The only thing standing between them and death was a mere caterpie.

Ninetales turned to look at the small bug, a superior gleam in its eye. The Elite smirked, knowing as well as everyone else that she had this won.

"Piiiiii!" Scout cried joyously, enjoying the attention. As she did this, ninetales suddenly toppled over in a dead faint, eyes rolling back into its head.

"_What?_ Ninetales barely even got hit!" the Elite girl screamed, yanking out a pokeball and returning her pokemon. "What-"

"Your ninetales was poisoned. Don't you remember?" Red said, almost smugly.

She opened her mouth, and then closed it again. It reminded Lydia of a beached magikarp. "Ugghhhh!" The girl stomped her foot childishly. "If you hadn't of poisoned her, I would have won! _I should have won_! Ughhhh!" She glanced around at all of them, realizing she was completely outnumbered. With one last enraged look, the Elite darted off into one of Mt. Moon's many tunnels and out of sight.

Lydia let out a sigh, and covered her face with her hands. She had no idea being a trainer was going to be this difficult. Was it really worth all this trouble?

Lydia's troubled thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Cassandra's voice. "Lydia, look!" She let her hands fall back to her sides as she looked up to see what the big deal was. Scout was jumping up and down, being her usual giddy self, but something was different. She was glowing…

As the bright light encased her entire form, Lydia could just make out the shifting of her outline. Her body grew nearly twice as tall, and transformed into a crescent. The glow soon began to dim, and a dark green cocoon had taken the place of the baby caterpie. "Metapod, med," she said monotonously.

Lydia beamed from ear to ear. She never pictured herself actually evolving a pokemon, but here she was. She knew the situation was too special to let her shallow fear get in the way, so she hesitantly gripped the pokemon's shell and lifted her. A shudder tried to pass down her spine, but somehow, she managed to suppress it. "Oh my gosh Scout, I can't believe you evolved!"

"Pod, meta," Scout said. It kind of bothered Lydia that she could no longer read her emotions, but she supposed she would just have to get used to the change.

"Congratulations," Cassandra said, also grinning.

Red stepped closer to them, inspecting her new metapod. "You're actually a decent trainer Lydia. Maybe I'll even battle you someday," Red said, like he was bestowing her with some great honor. Lydia resisted the urge to roll her eyes and giggle. _Boys. _

Cassandra, on the other hand, did roll her eyes. "And maybe you'll grow a bigger ego." She scoffed, flicking the brim of his hat and nearly knocking it off of his head. Lydia felt a flash of annoyance at the interaction, but she quickly shook it off.

"Hey!" he protested, adjusting his prize possession.

Lydia and Cassandra both laughed at his expression. Only Red would fret so much over his hat.

As she held her newly evolved metapod in her arms, laughing with her friends, Lydia realized that yes; being a trainer was definitely worth all the trouble that went along with it.

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**AN:** Too… Much… Battling. Ugh. I apologize sincerely if that bored you. I know some people probably don't enjoy reading battles, because I actually don't either. It wasn't really a boring chapter in general though, I don't guess. And I'm really proud of myself for how fast I got it done. It took me several hours, but I did all but about 200 words of it in just a day!

Anyway, I just kind of wanted to demonstrate the power of the Elites, and how the other characters are progressing. I wanted Red to come off as very skilled for his level, and I wanted you to see more of Lydia's battle strategy and the progress she's making.

**I opened another new poll, so please go vote!**

-Alphinia


	8. Chapter 8: Sealed with a Flame

**Disclaimer:** Pokémon isn't mine. Yadda yadda, on with the story.

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**Chapter 8: Sealed with a Flame**

"We hope to see you again!" Nurse Joy said, ever cheerful as she handed Red, Cassandra, and Lydia their respective pokeballs.

'_Does that mean she wants our pokemon to be injured again?_' Lydia wondered to herself, perplexed by the woman's strange choice of wording. She quickly scolded herself for overthinking things again, and gave the woman a shy smile.

"Thanks… Um, I borrowed this from the Pewter Center. W-would it be ok if I returned it here?" she asked quietly, pulling out the copy of Training 101. She had read it, re-read it, and went back over a few important points, but it was a pretty simple, short book and only had so much to offer.

"Of course!" The woman beamed, taking the book from her and waving her away.

Lydia wandered away from the desk and to where her friends had walked off to. She was slightly sad to see the book go. It had, after all, given her quite a few useful tips and inspired her to focus on strategy. Perhaps, since she would likely being staying at this center tonight, she could find a more detailed book to borrow later.

"Well, girls. I'm heading to the gym, and after I get my badge, I'm gonna start heading for the next city," Red said. Pikachu was already back on his shoulder, having made a full recovery from his rough battle yesterday.

"Pika." The little yellow mouse nodded in agreement.

"You're not traveling with us?" Cassandra asked, seeming surprised and a bit disappointed.

Lydia wasn't surprised at all. She already knew Red was a loner by nature, and that he would fair just fine without the company of other people. Just because she had expected it, however, didn't mean she particularly liked it. "Red… Remember what happened in Mt. Moon. I… I don't want you to get ki-hurt," Lydia said nervously.

"You worry to much. I'll be fine," he said nonchalantly, making as if to leave.

"Hey, wait! Can't we at least watch your battle?" Cassandra asked, grinning eagerly.

"I don't care. As long as you don't bother me while I'm battling," Red replied. His face was expressionless, like he really couldn't care less one way or the other. Lydia found herself getting a little annoyed with him. _Why_ did he have to be so careless about everything? He had almost _died _yesterday!

"Great! Come on Lydia." Cassandra grabbed her arm, to pull her along as usual, but she didn't budge. "What?"

"I'm… not coming," Lydia said lamely.

"What? Why?"

"Uhh... I have to do… stuff. I, uh, might come by in a few minutes after I get done." It was a lie. Or at least, partly a lie. She didn't want to go near another gym because she didn't want to risk Smaug begging her to challenge it again. She already knew she didn't stand a chance against any gym leader, and she didn't want to embarrass herself over it.

"Suit yourself," Cassandra said, frowning. Red shrugged, and they both left the center.

Lydia hated the way she seemed to be turning out the most useless of the 'dexholders'. Red was already an amazing trainer, and he had effortless control over his pokemon, not to mention he seemed to understand them better than she ever could. Gary, she knew, had enough determination to turn out very skilled as well (Though, probably not as skilled as he thought he was). The young Oak very obviously looked down on how she was pursuing her life as a trainer, and though he wouldn't be mean enough to outright say it, she knew Red did too.

Gary had his determination, Red has his natural ability. What did she have besides her book knowledge? Surely, Professor Oak had to have seen some potential in her, if he had chosen her instead of his own granddaughter? She wanted, more strongly than anything, to find some little thing that would make her shine as the other two did.

She found nothing.

Sighing a little sadly, Lydia too exited the Pokemon Center. A crisp wind whipped a few strands of hair out of her ponytail the moment she stepped outside, carrying with it the strong tang of sea salt. She had yet to actually see the Cerulean beach for herself, but that didn't mean it wasn't doing a nice job making its presence known.

Her brown eyes traveled over the city, wondering where exactly she could go to pass the time. She didn't want to stray to far from the pokemon center, because her sense of direction-especially in large cities- was far from top notch. How embarrassing it would be, if she ended up calling Cassandra to lead her back to the center.

Lydia eventually settled on visiting the nearby pokemart. She still had little money to spare, but that didn't change the fact that she needed supplies. Over the past few days, her worry over how exactly she was going to make a living grew. Her parents both had reasonably paying jobs, but they couldn't always spare enough cash to support her and her pokemon's many needs. Sadly, the only option of self-earned pay she could think of for herself was to simply battle other trainers, but she could just as easily loose all of her money that way.

The clear glass door of the mart jingled as she pushed through it, and the clerk at the counter lazily spared her a glance before returning to her magazine. The shop's interior stunned her briefly as she walked in, causing her to blink and rub at her eyes to rid them of the sudden influence of the bright colors. Shelves, fully stocked with the latest pokemon items, adorned most of the space. A couple other customers were inspecting them, but the place was surprisingly empty for the middle of the day.

Lydia was curious. Her trips into the pokemart in the past were rare, and this was her first time shopping without any guidance what so ever. She passed by a shelf with more different types of pokeballs than she knew existed, but she ignored her temptation to take a closer look because she knew she wasn't really in need of anymore yet.

Eventually, she came upon a display of notebooks, each with a different pokemon theme. _'Now this is something I might need one day,'_ she thought, recalling the day she had so badly wanted to take notes on the pidgey behavior.

She noticed a vulpix one that she thought was really cute, and she almost picked it, until she remembered the prissy ninetales that she had struggled against yesterday. Wrinkling her nose, she quickly put it back down. Another notebook soon caught her eye, and she immediately knew it was the one for her.

Giving the adorable charmander on the cover another smile, she tucked the item in the crook of her arm and kept looking. After a few more minutes of debating, Lydia decided on a sack of pokemon food, a set of children's stickers (She had a particular idea she wanted to try with them), and several different healing items.

Needless to say, by the time she left the store her purse was discouragingly emptier.

A few minutes later, Lydia sat down to relax on an outside bench and dropped the heavy bag containing her recent purchases at her side. She was thoroughly enjoying the warm, sunny weather, so she decided to release all of her pokemon to share the fun.

Smaug sat beside her loyally on the bench, making sure to keep his tail a safe distance from the flammable wood underneath them. He seemed to be just as happy as she had been to be outside of Mt. Moon and in the sunshine again. Scout, in her current immobile state, rested on the ground below them, her eyes often following the many passerby's. Arya nuzzled herself up between Lydia's ankle and Scout, somehow managing to avoid prodding either of them to roughly with her deadly spikes.

Lydia couldn't help but smile at the sight of her team all together like this. When she thought about it, they were almost like an extension of her family. So maybe Smaug wasn't the bravest charmander around, and Lydia happened to be scared to death of Scout, but _every_ family had some flaws and quirks, right? Both in real life and in her books.

She changed her position a bit until she was facing the pokemart bag and shifted through it until she dug out the children's stickers. "Hey Smaug, which one of these do you like best?" she asked, now turned towards him.

The lizard blinked his large, blue-green eyes at her, like he hadn't heard her right. When he seemed to realize she wasn't repeating herself anytime soon, he hesitantly pointed his little clawed finger at a particular sticker. It was a golden star.

Lydia nodded and peeled his choice off the paper. She picked his pokeball out of the pile of three beside her and rubbed the sticker down until it was laying on the red surface perfectly, without a single crease. "There." She smiled. "I want to make sure I don't get you guy's pokeballs mixed up anymore."

Arya easily chose a heart to decorate her own pokeball soon after. Since Scout was currently without the proper means of communication to decide for herself, Lydia picked out a pretty flower she hoped the bug would like.

They sat there in sweet silence for a while longer, but Lydia didn't know the exact amount of time that passed, and didn't really care. She was just happy to be spending quality time with her pokemon. The girl trainer smiled softly to herself, leaning back in her seat and letting the combined heat from the sun and Smaug's tail flame warm her skin.

"Hey, you're a trainer, right?" a voice asked.

Lydia sighed quietly, and peeled open her honey brown eyes. A young boy was standing before her, looking pretty down and out. A plump, pink looking pokemon she recognized as slowpoke stood a few feet away from them.

"U-um… Yes," she replied, a bit hesitantly.

"Could you help me get my pokemon to listen to me?"

"Um, I d-don't kno-"

"Great! Just watch this, he won't even listen to me!" the boy exclaimed, completely cutting her off. He pointed towards his pokemon. "Slowpoke, Flamethrower!"

The pokemon simply stared off into space for a moment. It barely looked aware that it was alive and breathing, much less that its trainer had just given it an order. Finally, after what seemed like ages, it tilted its pink head to the side stupidly. "…Slow?"

"See what I mean?" the little kid asked, sulkily crossing his arms in a pout.

Lydia stared at him for a moment, her mind completely blank on what to reply. She was pretty sure slowpoke was a water type, which meant it _couldn't even learn_ Flamethrower, right? Smaug glanced up at her, seeming to share her thoughts. Unfortunately he was to shy to even say anything (Not that the boy would be able to understand him, anyway), which meant _she_ was stuck with the spotlight on her and her alone.

She opened her mouth, still not knowing what to say, but her pokegear abruptly began ringing in her pocket. "Sorry," she said to the boy, silently thanking Mew for the interruption as she answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Lydia!" It was Cassandra, screeching into the device like a wild pidgey. Lydia winced at the loudness of her voice. "You should come watch Red battle. He's actually really good, and of course Misty is too. You might be able to learn something."

"Umm…" Lydia glanced between the boy before her, and the distant form of the pokemon gym. "… Ok. I'll be there in a second."

She stood up, recalling both Arya and Scout. However, when she pointed Smaug's pokeball at him, he shook his head pleadingly. Still filling a little guilty about the last time she had forced him inside it, she reluctantly hooked his empty pokeball back to her belt and motioned for him to follow on foot.

"I, um… Sorry, my friend needs me to be somewhere," Lydia said awkwardly, blushing a little and avoiding the boy's eyes.

"Great. I guess I'll do it by myself, then," he complained. As they walked away, she could still hear him ordering in vain for his slowpoke to use attacks like 'Absorb' and 'Thunderbolt'.

It didn't take Lydia and Smaug very long to reach their destination. Like with Brock's gym, Misty's décor made it blatantly obvious which type of pokemon she trained. The whole roof somewhat resembled a beachball, and the wave formations beneath gave the effect that its pink and orange stripes were halfway submerged in water. A giant dewgong shape was the central figure of the building, and all in all, Lydia thought the place resembled a water show performance area more than an actual pokemon league gym.

Lydia wasn't quite sure if she should knock before entering or not, but she eventually decided to just head on inside. It was a public building, so it wouldn't be a rude action…. She hoped.

She tried to ignore the way Smaug's face lit up with excitement, and the way his tail flame enlarged ever so slightly when they entered.

Instead, Lydia focused her attention on the beautiful aquariums lining the hall she was currently passing through. Exotic corals and seaweed covered the bottom of the tanks, and all kinds of water pokemon swam around blissfully. Goldeen, shellder, krabby, horsea, and many, many others. She forced herself to go on through the next set of double doors, knowing she would probably spend all day around all those pokemon if she could.

The first thing she noticed upon passing through the doors was the smell- the chlorine was strong, almost overpowering even. The second was that the entire room was almost taken up by a giant swimming pool, though a few platforms floated within it. Red stood on the one nearest to her, while an athletic looking redhead in a bikini (Misty, she guessed) stood on the opposite side of the pool.

Lydia found herself beginning to wish she had actually tagged along in the first place. To her disappointment, Misty was already placing a pokeball on the belt wrapped around her bare waist. The gym leader approached Red, but he was busy congratulating his pokemon and didn't look up. It was already an Ivysaur, Lydia realized with a slight shock. He really was farther ahead of her than she cared to think about.

"Wow Red. Your pokemon were just too strong." Misty smiled, almost bitter sweetly. "Here's the Cascade badge. Congratulations, you've earned it." The boy nodded at her and accepted the shiny badge in her outstretched hand. Lydia didn't get a close enough look at it to identify any details.

"Oh, hey. You made it, but you missed the whole thing. Bummer, huh?" Cassandra said, suddenly beside her. Lydia jumped slightly, nearly tripping and falling into the pool. Luckily, she regained her footing just in time to save herself from extreme embarrassment.

"Lydia? Have you finally decided to challenge the gyms?" Red asked, seeming surprised to see her there.

"Oh, no way." Smaug's expression fell dramatically, and Lydia winced. "I just came to see if I could watch your battle."

"You're really wasting your talent, you know," he said. One of his jet black eyebrows was raised in a way that plainly said he couldn't fathom why _any_ trainer would want to pass up a chance to get a badge.

Lydia wasn't sure if Red intended his words to be a complement or an insult, but she found herself blushing anyway. She wasn't sure what to say to either, so she didn't reply.

"Charmander, char?" Smaug asked, tugging on her pants leg and pointing at Misty (Who was now swimming around in her pool) pleadingly.

"Smaug…" Lydia began with a sigh, but she didn't continue. Everyone already knew what her answer was, so why did they all seem so determined to change her mind? She found herself becoming aggravated by their persistence, but deep down, she knew they were probably only doing what they thought was a nice thing for her.

"Looks like your pokemon agrees with me," Red commented, smirking lightly and bouncing Ivysaur's pokeball up and down in his hand. "Well, I'm not gonna stick around any longer than I have to. Gary's already ahead of me, and I need to get my next badge. Maybe I'll see you guys later."

He headed for the exit, but Lydia cut him off. "You… You better be careful!" she called. For a moment, she was afraid he hadn't heard her quiet voice over the noise of the gym, but he turned and gave her the briefest nod of acknowledgement before leaving.

"He's cute," Cassandra quipped, the moment he was out of earshot. "Why don't you date him?"

Lydia stared at her incredulously, but her face turned a bright, tomato red. "W-what?" she sputtered, since she didn't think Amber would appreciate it if she blurted something along the lines of _"Because my best friend Amber Oak is madly in love with him!"_

Eventually, she settled for, "Eww. M-me and Red? N-no way. Why, do _you_ like him or something?"

Cassandra snorted lightly, waving her hand nonchalantly. "Hah, of course not. I don't date younger men."

Lydia began walking towards the exit doors of the gym, praying that her face didn't still show exactly how embarrassed she was about the situation. Ok, so Red was… _attractive_. She had heard the same thing from Amber millions of times. But that didn't mean dating her childhood friend wasn't a rather disturbing idea. It was almost like… dating her brother, or close cousin.

"Okay, dude. If you don't stop blushing like that all the time, I'm gonna start calling you Miss Magby," Cassandra remarked with a small laugh.

Lydia felt herself blushing brighter. "They have a body temperature of over 1,100 degrees, you know. I don't think I get _that _hot when I blush," she blurted, then mentally smacked herself. Seriously, did she just say that? Normal people didn't _know _things like that, much less spout it out the top of their heads.

She blamed Cassandra for making her thoughts temporarily go haywire.

As expected, the other girl simply stared at her for a moment. "Um… Ok. Thank you for that biology lesson, Miss Magby."

They were a good ways away from the gym now, and the pokemon center was within sight. Lydia was so relieved. She couldn't wait to have a hot shower and a good night's sleep in an actual bed, lumpy as the ones in the center may be. However, she happened to notice the third member of their little party was missing.

"Smaug?" Lydia asked aloud, glancing around. Her heart beat began to quicken, but she felt it slow back to its usual pace when she spotted him a few yards away, gazing at the gym with yearning. "What are you doing, buddy? Come on, we have to get to the center."

The little charmander exhaled softly, causing a small cloud of smoke to float up into the clear blue sky. He followed her like the obedient pokemon he was, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"What's wrong?" she asked desperately, even though she already knew exactly what was wrong.

"Charmander…"

"Look, I'm sorry! I-I don't know what to tell you… " Lydia was nervous. She couldn't challenge the gyms like he wanted. She wouldn't. But she didn't want him to dislike having her as his trainer, either.

"You should tell him that you'll challenge Misty. Come on Lydia, what could it hurt? Just one gym leader. Even if you lose, it won't be a big deal. I'll bet anything that most of the challengers Misty gets lose anyway. She won't even remember you," Cassandra said.

"Mander?" Smaug asked, a ray of hope shining in his eyes.

"No… But I can't…"

The hope disappeared into an abyss of sadness and regret. Lydia gulped. Was that really what she was becoming to Smaug? Something negative? She didn't like that at all. He was obviously to obedient and nice to outright complain about her, but she didn't want him to be constantly hurting on the inside. She cared about him greatly, but then again, shouldn't her own feelings in the matter be important, too?

"O-okay…"Lydia said nervously to rid herself of the guilt. She almost instantly regretted her words, but she knew she couldn't take them back now. That would be just plain out cruel. "B-but I'm only challenging Misty, okay? If… _If_ we can beat her, I'll challenge the other gym leaders. But only if I beat her."

Why, oh why couldn't things go her way, just once?

**

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**

**AN:** Sorry, I know this chapter is basically all filler, but the last thing I want to do is rush the story. At least you had an eventful chapter last time, and you got to know Red a tiny bit. For some reason, I'm really fond of him, even though he has some irritating characteristics... Amber anyone?

Any suggestions for a female water pokemon name, guys? I think I know what I'm going to name her, but if you guys have a better idea then I would be happy to change it. Remember; just make it from a relatively well known book that I haven't used yet!

**Review Reply:** Something that was mentioned last chapter was the fact that Lydia seems to be the only one who has pokemon, and I guess that is intended towards Cassandra only having one. This is a small problem I have thought about, and Cassandra will actually be making a catch of her own in the near future. She really isn't all that interested in pokemon anyway though, at least not to the extent that the others are. If it was aimed towards Red, don't worry, he has three pokemon at the moment, they just haven't all been shown.

On another note, I hope you all had a fabulous Valentines Day:) Better than mine at least.*Sigh*Somehow, I ended up being my friend's boyfriend's valentine. What the heck? Anyway, until next week,

-Alphinia


	9. Chapter 9: VS Misty

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Pokemon.

Hola, dear readers, and gracias, reviewers. ;) If you read my profile, then you know my computer is having problems with viruses, but my flashdrive with the story doesn't! Thank goodness. However, I would like to point out that this could still slow my updating to some degree since I won't have a computer all to myself.

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**Chapter 9: VS Misty**

Lydia and Smaug came to a halt when they reached a medium-sized, grassy meadow a little ways outside of Cerulean. A steep cliff rose out of the ground, blocking off one of the sides around it, but the remainder of the exterior was simply covered by a thin veil of trees.

It was the day after she had promised Smaug a match against Misty. He and Cassandra had been a little surprised when she had continued for the pokemon center instead of turning on her heels to challenge the gym leader right then and there. Ok, so she had next to no chance or even hope of winning, but she had no intention of looking like a complete fool in front of such a famous trainer. Lydia, perfectionist that she tended to be, fully planned to come up with at least a semi-respectable strategy, and actually _train_ her pokemon for once.

But how did one go about training? The importance of it was always stressed, but nobody ever said what they actually _did_. Her first thought was to battle a bunch of wild pokemon, but she quickly rejected the idea. It would be to time consuming to track down enough pokemon to make a difference, and she didn't really plan on training more than one day for her match. Plus, she thought it would be kind of cruel to just battle them and leave them injured. She then considered finding trainers to battle, but dismissed that thought as well for similar reasons.

Eventually, Lydia settled on letting all of her pokemon out to see if they could perfect their moves. The three of them sat there observing her as she made her way over to the cliff. She placed a finger on her chin for a moment, deep in though, before she finally said, "Hey, Smaug, could you come over here and burn three spots on this cliff, please? Try to make them all about two feet apart, if you can."

He gave her a curious look, but still obeyed her request and used Ember on three different spots on the cliff, leaving them singed a blackish color. Feeling a bit awkward to be instructing them like this, Lydia moved both Arya and Smaug back about ten feet from their perspective targets. "Arya, poison sting, and Smaug, use ember. Try to hit the black spots."

To her immense disappointment, Smaug's ember completely fizzled out into a thin wisp of smoke before it reached the cliff. Arya's poison sting did manage to reach it, but she still missed her target by a good foot at least. Lydia, Smaug, and even Arya (As little enthusiasm as she seemed to have for violence) deflated briefly at the complete failure. Lydia tried to put on a cheerful look for them as she said, "H-hey, that's alright! Just move up a bit and keep practicing. You'll get it eventually."

Surprised at how much her words seemed to encourage them, she turned her attention to Scout. The metapod looked up at her with her emotionless, seemingly unblinking eyes. "Hmmm… Can you even use tackle anymore?"

"Meta," the cocoon said in her monotonous voice. She rocked back and forth in place, obviously trying to fulfill her trainer's orders, but she failed to move so much as an inch.

Lydia sighed. Oh, this was just _lovely_. Scout hadn't been particularly strong as a caterpie, but together, her string shot and tackle were useful. Now, she wouldn't be able to inflict damage at all!

As creepy as her old appearance had been, Lydia found herself wishing Scout hadn't evolved at all. She was like… a completely different pokemon. She glanced at Smaug and Arya practicing their moves out of the corner of her eye. If they ever evolved, would they change so drastically as well? The more she thought about it, the more she disliked the thought of sweet, shy Smaug ever becoming an aggressive pokemon like charmeleon were always rumored to be. And Arya. Arya was always so loving, but would evolution beat that out of her?

"You can still use string shot… right?"

"Meta."

"…Um. Okay." Lydia blinked.

She had a feeling this was going to be a long day.

Smaug, Arya, and Scout (Well, not so much Scout. There was only so much a cocoon could do) did endure a long, hard day of training. Smaug finally mastered his metal claw, though his ember didn't get quite as much range as Lydia would have liked. Some strange man also passed by at one point in the day and insisted on tutoring him mega punch to settle some sort of bet with his brother, but she wasn't convinced it worked. Arya mostly focused on improving her aim with poison sting, and she also did a little work with her double kick. Scout… just sat there and tried to perfect her harden. It seemed to be the only attack she could easily use.

Basically, they were completely exhausted by the time Lydia recalled them. She decided to wait yet another day before she challenged Misty, because she obviously didn't want to battle the gym leader with a drained team. Instead, she decided to use the rest of the evening to come up with her strategy. In fact, she already had the beginnings of one working in her brain, but she didn't think Smaug would be too fond of the idea.

Actually, she knew for a fact that he would hate it, but if he was really as determined as he seemed to take the gym challenge, he would agree with her. Because honestly, it was their only chance of even competing with Misty, much less winning.

* * *

"Smaug, I _know_ you want to battle. But if you really want us to win, you'll sit this one out. I mean, the whole battlefield is basically water. You'd be a sitting pidgey for Misty's pokemon!" Lydia insisted, setting her reluctant charmander down on the bench next to Cassandra.

He looked almost pained, but Smaug was a sensible pokemon, so he finally nodded his consent. "Charmander, char."

"Thanks buddy," Lydia said, patting him affectionately on the head and walking to the challenger's platform.

She could vaguely here Cassandra saying, "You know, isn't this whole match pointless if Smaug doesn't even battle? That was the whole point!" She ignored the other girl, because she knew if let the words get to her she wouldn't be able to concentrate on the battle.

As Misty climbed out of the pool and onto her own platform, Lydia couldn't help but wring her shaking hands over the metal railing before her. She had never been more nervous in her entire life, but at the same time, the prospect of battling a famous gym leader brought her a strange sense of exhilaration. It reminded her a bit of when she threw a pokeball for the first time.

A referee stepped up to stand at the side of the pool. "This match is about to take place between gym leader Misty of Cerulean, and challenger Lydia Leaf of Pallet Town. Misty will not be allowed to make substitutions, but the challenger can. Each trainer will use two pokemon, and whoever defeats all the other's pokemon first will be declared the winner. Begin!" He said, like he had already recited those exact words a thousand times.

_Thump. _

_Thump._

_Thump. _

Lydia realized the noise reverberating throughout her ears was the beating of her own heart. She took a deep, shuddering breath, knowing that her pokemon would probably become uneasy as well if she didn't calm herself. The girl tried to take comfort in the fact that the _"Gym Leader Guide: Kanto Edition"_ book she borrowed from the pokemon center last night had told her Misty's most used pokemon (staryu and starmie), and her favorite move (Water Pulse). The gym leader knew nothing about her, not even which pokemon she used!

Sadly, the information didn't do much to make her feel better.

"Go, Staryu!" Misty released a tan, sea-star like pokemon. It had five pointed limbs and a red gem in its center. Lydia had never actually seen one in real life, but she had read a few interesting things about them. Apparently, it could lose one of its legs, and grow it right back. Creepy as it was, it was one of the more interesting things she had read about.

"Go, Arya," Lydia said, putting forth all of her effort to make her voice as strong and steady as possible. With a flick of her wrist, her nidoran appeared on the floating platform nearest to her. The small, blue pokemon eyed her opponent with a steady ruby gaze, calmly awaiting her trainer's orders.

"Your move!" Misty called out confidently.

Lydia started slightly, having been so immersed in her pathetic efforts to look tough that she had lost track of the battle. "Ummm…. Arya. Use poison sting!"

Arya opened her mouth and began rapidly spitting purple darts at Staryu, but her efforts were in vain when the water type simply jumped off the platform and submerged itself under water. Lydia mentally slapped herself; Arya's aim had improved a ton, but she hadn't taken into account how much harder it would be to hit a moving target.

"Alright, Staryu, now use rapid spin!" Misty ordered, looking like she'd much rather be relaxing in her pool than having yet another useless battle. Lydia frowned; she was determined _not_ to be just another loser to Misty. She was going to give the gym leader a run for her money, or in this case, pokeballs.

Arya, having also heard Misty's order, eyed the water anxiously in preparation for the inevitable attack. Several tense moments passed before Staryu suddenly erupted from the pool, spinning towards the nidoran in a way that reminded Lydia of a frisbee. Arya bravely stood her ground (Not that she really had anywhere else to go, other than the water, that is) and fired another series of poison stings at the approaching pokemon. Staryu was thrown roughly off track by the unsuspected counter attack, causing it to knock into the platform instead of what it was initially aiming for. The platform Arya was on rocked back and forth dangerously, causing the little pokemon to scramble for her footing.

Lydia let out a sigh of relief when she managed to steady herself, and allowed her eyes roam the pool for Staryu. She finally located the pokemon swimming at the opposite side of the arena. Its top point, or head, _whatever_ the top of a Staryu was called, was sticking out from beneath the waves. She spotted a single, tiny purple dart sticking out from its skin, and smiled to herself.

"Alright Arya, that's enough for now," Lydia said, recalling her and pulling a second pokeball from her belt.

"Hmmm, you're using a sub so soon?" Misty asked, blinking at her curiously from the other side of the pool.

Lydia nodded her head, her cheeks tinted a light pink color from being addressed directly by the gym leader. "Go Scout," she called, tossing her second pokeball onto the field. Luckily, the cocoon landed on one of the platforms. Lydia suspected that were she to fall into the water, Scout would sink straight to the bottom.

Misty looked a little skeptical of her choice in pokemon, but didn't voice her thoughts this time. "Staryu, use water pulse," the gym leader ordered, still not seeming very impressed by her current opponent.

Lydia's honey eyes widened. If a water pulse attack hit her pokemon straight on, she would be sent tumbling into the pool and the first round would be over in seconds. Thinking quickly, she shouted, "Scout, hurry and use string shot on yourself so you'll stick to the platform!"

Lydia twirled her hair nervously, highly unsure if her idea would really work or not. The cocoon, still emotionless as ever, showered herself in sticky white material. Staryu's powerful jet of water washed over her moments later, but surprisingly, her string shot managed to keep her grounded.

"Great job!" Lydia smiled. "Now, follow up with harden. Just keep using it."

Scout began to shine a bright white color, and when the glow faded, her jade green shell seemed to radiate strength. A few seconds later, the light resumed, and the process repeated itself over and over again until the bug type's defense reached its peak.

Staryu, on the other hand (Or fin. Hah) was looking weaker by the minute. Its movements turned sluggish, and the gem on the center of its body began to flash a dull red color. Lydia, with a small thrill of excitement, recalled that was a sign Staryu was about to faint. Apparently, Arya's poison had done its job.

After trying a few more attacks, Misty finally seemed to accept that her weakened pokemon wasn't going to defeat Scout at her highest defense, no matter how much stronger it would be than her in normal circumstances. Looking like she didn't know whether she should smile or frown, Misty pulled Staryu's pokeball from her belt and returned it in a quick flash of red light.

"I forfeit this match. Staryu won't last much longer anyway, "she told the referee, then glanced at Lydia with her piercing blue-green eyes. "I have to say I'm impressed, but I'm afraid you won't beat Starmie so easily."

Lydia tried to smile coolly on the outside, but on the inside, she beamed. _'I just impressed a _gym leader_!'_

"Starmie, your turn!"

A much larger, violet sea-star materialized before Misty this time. With a confidence that could only come from winning countless battles, the pokemon gurgled what must have been threatening noises at Scout. A second star that seemed to be semi-attached to its back swung back and forth, the weight of the pokemon's body causing its platform to sway lightly.

Despite the fact that it was an obvious threat to her own pokemon, Lydia felt her inner thirst for knowledge ignite itself at the sight of the strange creature. She had read even odder things about starmie than she had staryu.

"Swift!"

At the sound of the gym leader's command, Lydia abruptly shook herself out of the starmie-induced daze. She could only watch helplessly as the tiny golden stars from the attack flew towards Scout and pelted the motionless pokemon. One of the stars raked its razor like edge particularly roughly across her shell, causing Scout's eyes to squint in pain.

A single crack rippled over nearly her whole front side, and a blinding white beam shown out of the wound before consuming the bug type's entire body.

"Scout? _Scout!"_ Lydia screamed, fearing for her pokemon's life. She watched with large, anxious eyes as Scout's body expanded, particularly width wise. The light went away, and an entirely new pokemon was crouched over a barren metapod shell.

"Freeee!" Lydia ran her hands over her face, allowing her tense muscles to relax. Scout wasn't fatally injured at all, but the attack _had_ triggered another evolution in her. Well, the previous battle with the staryu had probably moved things along quite a bit for her too.

Scout stood upright on her tiny blue feet, moving her moist wings back and forth experimentally and examining her new form. Actually… she was kind of pretty now.

For a bug, anyway.

Lydia was barely able to contain her grin. She had a _butterfree_ now. That was a third stage evolution! At the moment, she didn't even care that they, fully evolved or not, were still relatively common on the Kanto trainer's team.

"Congratulations," Misty said. "But I'm afraid it's time to continue our battle. Starmie, rapid spin!"

While Starmie shot off like a rocket towards the newly evolved Scout, Lydia frantically attempted to recall any moves she knew butterfree learned. "Scout, fly up above the pool!" she shouted, because none apart from tackle came to her. She couldn't counter a rapid spin with an attack like tackle!

Scout, still awkward in her new form, fluttered uselessly around on the platform. Lydia grimaced, realizing that her pokemon was not only completely inexperienced in her current body, but a few strands of her own string shot still littered her wings. Though at first it had seemed more like a miracle, the evolution was quickly turning into something more along the lines of a curse.

Luckily, Scout managed to gain a few feet in height just seconds before her attacker spun right through the space she has previously been occupying. Starmie took this in stride, however, and simply swung right back around like a boomerang and hit her dead on. Scout let out a weak cry of fright as she was tossed straight into the water below.

Obviously terrified of the water, Scout splashed around pathetically for few a moments before the referee stepped forward and announced, "Butterfree is unable to battle. This match goes to Misty."

With a slight sigh, Lydia recalled her and pulled Arya's pokeball, the one newly decorated with a heart, back from her belt. "You're my only hope now, Arya," she whispered to the shiny red orb winking back at her. She had no idea whether Arya could hear her or not, but people in books and even on TV talked to their pokeballs all the time, so she figured she should give it a try.

Lydia tossed the ball lightly towards the platform, and Arya appeared. She seemed as calm and healthy as ever, giving her trainer a small sense of comfort. Misty stared at Lydia pointedly, and she realized with slight surprise that the gym leader was offering her the first move. "Uhh, poison sting."

Arya immediately spat a trail of her poison darts towards Starmie, but to Lydia's dismay, the pokemon simply dove underwater and disappeared within its depths. "Nice try, but we're not falling for that trick again," Misty taunted. "Water pulse, Starmie. Let's get this over with already."

Lydia held her breath. Her memory of Staryu's water pulse was fresh, and she knew that Starmie's would likely be twice as strong. Needless to say, taking more than one hit that hard would probably mean the end of the battle for Arya.

"Arya, jump in the water," she blurted the moment Starmie's purple tip surfaced about ten feet away from the nidoran. It was an extremely risky move, but the only one that could save her pokemon from the dreaded water pulse.

Arya, however nervous she probably was about jumping straight into her opponent's territory, played the part of the obedient pokemon she always was and dived into the pool. She didn't appear to be a very skilled swimmer, but at least she didn't seem to be on the verge of drowning or anything.

Starmie's attack sailed straight over the platform, but Lydia's relief was short-lived when Misty called, "Starmie, whirlpool!"

The water around Arya began to swirl, and soon the nidoran's body was sucked underwater and into the vortex. Lydia began to panic. She couldn't see the starmie anymore, and her own pokemon's condition was a complete mystery at the moment.

'_What if she drowns?'_ Lydia thought frantically to herself. _'Oh Mew; I'll never forgive myself if she drowns!_'

"Um… Um…" No brilliant strategy for a win came to her. Arya wasn't going to evolve at the last minute and make things all better like they did in the books. She wasn't going to learn some new move that would miraculously defeat Starmie. "Uh, if you can hear me, use poison sting Arya!"

For a few, tense moments, nothing happened. Lydia and Misty both stared at the pool intensely, and suddenly, the vicious whirlpool came to a halt. Several purple things floated to the surface in random spots in the pool, and upon closer inspection, Lydia was able to identify them as Arya's very own poison darts.

Was it really possible that Arya… had managed to use Starmie's whirlpool to her advantage? The spinning must have given her poison sting the ability to quickly reach ever area in the pool. Lydia was more than a bit surprised; the idea had been a wacky, vague thought in the back of her head. The most she had really hoped for was to break Starmie's concentration.

A splash sounded, and out leapt Starmie onto a platform closest to Misty. The pokemon was thrashing in pain, its skin littered with several of the familiar purple projectiles. Droplets of water flew in the gym leader's direction from its actions, but she appeared unaffected by them. Though Starmie was breathing rather heavily, it bent down into an aggressive battle crouch.

Lydia had a feeling that if it had eyes, they would be sending a death glare in her direction right about now.

A tiny, baby blue horn finally poked the surface, quickly followed by the rest of Arya's body. She appeared to be very tired and lightly bruised in a few places, but otherwise, her injuries could have been much worse. "Thank goodness…" Lydia mumbled quietly to herself, feeling her heartbeat finally slow back to its regular rhythm.

"Well, I've got to admit. I didn't expect you to get this far," Misty said. "But that doesn't mean that I'm going to go easy on you now. Rapid spin!"

Starmie spun towards Arya in the now familiar style. Though Lydia noticed that its speed had notably decreased since the last time it had used the attack, her mind was still busy processing her last success and she completely froze up for a moment. As a result, Arya was on the receiving end of one of Starmie's points, nearly sending her tumbling back into the pool.

The nidoran managed to retaliate in a small way of her own, however, by taking a swipe at her opponent's backside with her small claws. Starmie abruptly changed direction again, heading back towards Arya. "A-arya. Use double kick, fast."

Arya swiftly swung her body around to meet Starmie, her two powerful back legs making contact with its gem the moment they collided. The starfish pokemon rebounded backwards from the spring-like maneuver into the water. A few seconds later, it resurfaced belly-up in the pool, its gem blinking lightly before fading to a dull red color.

The referee blinked, then held up the flag he clutched in his left hand. "The victory goes to the challenger, Lydia Leaf from Pallet Town."

Lydia never felt prouder than she did the moment the Cascade badge was placed in her palm by Misty herself. Maybe taking the gym challenge wouldn't be so bad after all…

* * *

**AN:** And here we have that training chapter I promised you ;) It took me forever to write the last half of it, since school is now back in full swing. Please forgive me if it's not the best, I had to force myself to finish the last half…

I'm well aware that this was very soon for Scout to evolve again, but it's logical to me. The caterpie line is always said to grow very fast anyway, and she just defeated a high level staryu. I tried not to make the battle to easy, but I didn't think it should be ridiculously hard, either. If any of you have ideas for a strategy Lydia could use in the future against other gym leaders or just in general, I'd love to hear them because I'm not very creative and she needs to be a strategist.

-Alphinia


	10. Chapter 10: The Purrfect Priss

**Disclaimer:** Ok, prepare for the shock of your lives; I don't own pokemon. *Gasp*.

I also don't own any of the books mentioned.

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**Chapter 10: The Purrfect Priss**

"You know, if you seriously plan on challenging the gym leaders, writing things in that stupid book isn't going to help. You need to catch more pokemon."

At the sound of Cassandra's voice, the small family of oddish Lydia had been observing let out little cries of fright before rapidly digging themselves back into the ground. Now, most travelers would probably pass them off as the average weed without sparing them a second glance. Lydia set her charmander notebook and pencil down, trying not to let her annoyance show. She didn't know how the other girl had found her, but she had made a point to go out _alone_ while Cassandra was busy eating breakfast.

"Cassandra, I already told you; I don't want to catch so many pokemon that I can't spend time with them all. I promised to help Professor Oak in some way, so I'm taking notes for him."

"You _also _promised Smaug a gym challenge. You know you can't do that with just three pokemon," Cassandra retorted, crossing her arms.

They were in a clearing just south of Cerulean City, but still a few miles north of Saffron. It was undeniably a good spot to look for pokemon, which was the exact reason Lydia had stopped here in the first place. Unfortunately, both she and Cassandra had completely different ideals on what exactly to _do_ with those pokemon.

"So now that that's settled, should we head for the gym in Saffron or Vermillion first?" Cassandra asked, as if she knew she had already won.

Lydia let out an exasperated sigh. She knew good and well that in most cases, any argument with the persuasive redhead was a losing battle from the start. "Fine. I guess you could go get us a room in Saffron, and I'll try to… to catch a pokemon."

"Glad you saw it my way." Cassandra smirked lightly. "I'm gonna go ahead and get a head start. I'll call you when I get a room. See you later!"

After wishing her friend farewell, Lydia wondered which type of pokemon she should catch, which type would benefit her team the most. Ever since her battle with Misty, she had discovered a certain fondness for water types, but had no idea where she could catch one around here unless she went all the way to the other side of Cerulean. A flying type would probably be helpful, yet she had never been too crazy about birds and she already had Scout.

Eventually, she resolved to just catch whichever pokemon she happened to come upon, as long as it wasn't something she disliked in particular. Besides, she had learned to tolerate _Scout_, whose type she was absolutely terrified of.

Lydia armed herself with both a pokeball and her pokedex. With a small sigh, she headed farther away from the path to find her next companion. The search went on for quite a while, though most of her attempts were highly unsuccessful. Mostly, she just went around sticking her head into random underbrush, like she expected her dream pokemon to just magically appear there.

A couple rattata scampered across her path, but she paid them no mind. They only reminded her of Calvin and his shorts, so she really had no desire for one.

Eventually, Lydia found herself plopped down on a large rock to rest. Though her body was slowly beginning to adjust to the constant traveling she was doing, all those years she had spent cooped up in her room reading were still getting their revenge on her. She was a _tired_ girl at the moment.

Brushing her dark chocolate bangs back out of her eyes, she twisted off the cap on a bottle of water and took a long sip. She felt the cool, fresh liquid rushing down her throat, revitalizing her.

"Mreoww."

Lydia jumped slightly, glancing up. A small, lithe looking feline stood in front of her, the light of the midday sun reflecting off of the medallion on its head. Unlike most of the other pokemon she had encountered, something about this one just screamed femininity. Whether it was the way the meowth carried herself, or lushness of her fur, she just _knew._

The pokemon's beige whiskers twitched in annoyance. "Mreoww, meow!"

"Um… What's wrong?" Lydia asked obliviously.

The meowth actually went so far as to let out a small hiss this time. Oddly, she glanced away immediately after and turned up her nose, as if she were actually covering up embarrassment from her actions. She dismissively waved a paw at the rock Lydia was currently sitting on.

"Oh! I-is this your sunning rock?" Lydia asked, nervously. She tried to add in a light laugh, but it cut off into a gulp when she spotted the claws adorning the pokemon's paws. They were small, but they were _sharp._

The meowth nodded.

"Sorry about that…" Lydia said, then suddenly remembered what she was here for in the first place. Slowly, she stepped away from the rock, her fingers secretively wrapping around one of the pokeballs on her belt.

"I'm gonna go ahead and apologize for this too, but… I really need to do this," she said, tossing the ball forward. It burst into a ray of white light, and Smaug appeared. He blinked for a couple seconds, but then quickly raised his claws upon seeing the wild pokemon.

Lydia was happy to see that he didn't seem quite as nervous as he had in his last battle. Smiling slightly, she said, "Ember, please."

He spat out a few balls of fire at the meowth, singing her fur. Still seeming surprised at what was occurring, she glanced back at her beloved pelt in shock. Then, her eyes narrowed into slits and her claws visibly emerged from her paws.

She dashed towards the charmander with astonishing speed and raked her claws roughly over his cheek. Smaug flinched, but quickly swung his tail around to knock her off her feet. The meowth's attempt to leap over it failed, and she found herself temporarily belly-up below him.

"Hurry and use metal claw," Lydia ordered.

His claws gleamed silver and he brought them down over her stomach, and the meowth let out a meow of pain. Seeing her chance, Lydia grabbed an empty pokeball out of her bag and awkwardly threw it at the downed pokemon.

She had never experienced the anxiousness that came with waiting for a pokeball to stop shaking, and she wasn't sure if she loved it or hated it. It wiggled, once, twice, three times. Finally, a clear 'ping' sounded throughout the air, and the ball went completely still.

"Oh my gosh, we caught it!" Lydia grinned, bending down to hug Smaug tightly. He smiled at her joy, exposing his small, pointy fangs.

"Char, mander, char."

"We should probably start heading towards Saffron to meet up with Cassandra. I mean, there's no reason for her to not be able to get a room," Lydia said. She kneeled down to pick up her new meowth's pokeball, then lifted Smaug into her arms.

She definitely wouldn't mind his company for the rest of the walk.

* * *

Cassandra gazed up at the tall form of the wall that surrounded Saffron. She was almost there. Finally.

Sometimes she really hated all of the traveling she had been doing the past year or so, and a few times she even considered returning home. Cassandra snarled her nose in slight distaste, reminding herself of that run-down _place_ that barely deserved the title of home. Besides, if she didn't keep traveling, she would never discover the answers to the questions that had plagued her throughout her entire life.

It was improving, at least, now that she had someone other than Gastly to keep her company. She had always found him a reasonably good pokemon, but the affection she felt for him wasn't really love.

She didn't really love anybody, or at least if she did, it was never mentioned aloud.

Heck, Cassandra could probably count all the friends she had left on one hand. It wasn't that she was an overly cruel or cold person. She just didn't have the time to manage such a relationship, and she never stayed in one place long enough to meet people anymore. Still, as strange as the girl was, Cassandra had found herself growing an odd fondness for Lydia over the past few days.

If Cassandra were to choose a friend for herself, Lydia would probably be her very last choice. She was sweet, quiet, and innocent, everything Cassandra was not. But somehow, they managed to get along. She even found herself harboring something akin to older sister-like protectiveness over the other girl. However smart she was, Lydia's naiveté could potentially be the death of her, and Cassandra had been well aware of this since almost the moment she met her.

The entrance to Saffron was just in front of her now. It was a relatively large building, but it didn't look as if it had an upstairs like many of the other route entrances across Kanto. Just as she was stepping through the door, a very pissed off looking boy stomped past her. He bumped into her rather roughly along his way, not even glancing back to apologize.

"Hey, watch it asshole!" Cassandra called after him, but he paid her no mind.

Still fuming, she continued on her way inside. A relatively young guard sat behind a counter, twirling a set of keys nonchalantly in his hand. Cassandra made to walk straight on through the door on the opposite side, but he called, "Sorry sweetie, the road is closed."

She raised one ginger eyebrow in aggravation. "Oh yeah? And why is that? I need to get to Saffron."

Something glinted in the guard's eyes, but she didn't pay to much attention to it. When something struck one of her nerves, she barely paid attention to anything besides getting what she wanted. He scowled at her. "And I'm pretty thirsty, but I can't leave my post til' tonight. Guess that means we'll both be disappointed."

Suddenly, it wasn't such a mystery why that other boy had exited the building so angry. Cassandra scowled back at the guard. She was beginning to find herself getting _very_ pissed off.

A pissed off Cassandra wasn't a good thing.

"Please," she said through gritted teeth, trying to turn on all the natural charm that came with being a young girl. "I have some family in Saffron, and I haven't seen them in forever. I would really appreciate it."

"Sorry babe, no can do." He grinned smugly at her, and she found herself wanting to knock the look off his face.

"Listen here, bub." Cassandra took a step towards him, jabbing a finger in his face and letting all of her anger show. "Firstly, don't call me babe._ Ever_. Second, I'm going to Saffron. I really don't see what the damn big deal is!"

The man yawned lazily and leaned back in his chair, but she noticed an angry look cross his face for a slit second. He snapped his fingers, and a hulking machoke appeared from behind the counter. "Escort this damn girl outside. She's getting on my nerves."

* * *

Lydia plopped down on the pokemon center bed and immediately yanked her sneakers off. Her feet were killing her, and she was sweaty. How gross was that?

It was around ten o'clock at night, and she had just returned to Cerulean. A few hours ago, she had received a call from Cassandra, who had informed her that the road to Saffron was currently closed. It was disappointing news of course, but part of her was relieved that there was a wider gap in between now and her next gym challenge.

According to "Gym Leader Guide: Kanto Edition," Sabrina had some pretty creepy abilities. Lt. Surge (who she was now being forced to challenge next), on the other hand, looked downright scary. She wasn't sure which was worse, but apparently fate had made the decision for her in the end.

Either fate, or just plain out bad luck.

She grabbed the newest edition to her belt and lightly pressed the button on the center. On the journey to Cerulean, there hadn't been a chance to introduce herself. Her meowth appeared, frankly looking very displeased with her surroundings.

"Hi," she said to the pokemon, trying to muster her friendliest smile. "I'm Lydia."

The meowth stared at her for a split second, but her face suddenly crumpled in disgust. Her large eyes looked her new trainer up and down, pausing briefly at her exposed socks. "Mreoww," she said, turning her nose up.

"Oh, um… S-sorry about that. I've been walking all day," Lydia said, blushing brightly in embarrassment. "I'll go take a shower in a second, okay? But I think we should give you a name first…"

She placed a hand on her chin and examined the meowth thoroughly. A few characters came to her, but she said the most obvious one first. "How about Dinah? Like Alice's meowth."

The meowth immediately shook her head.

"Umm… Elizabeth? No? Okay… Annabeth?"

"Mrww!" the pokemon suddenly said. Lydia couldn't understand her, but her facial expression clearly said, _"You absolutely suck at coming up with names!"_

Lydia sighed. Those were some of the only ones she thought would fit the meowth, and she personally liked them. Of course, she just _had_ to catch the pickiest (And prissiest) meowth in all of Kanto. She thought deeply for a few minutes, and finally, one she thought was pretty good came to her. "Do you like Scarlet?"

The pokemon looked less than satisfied, but she hadn't voiced her displeasure yet. Lydia decided to take advantage of that fact.

"Umm… Scarlet was very rich and pretty." The meowth cocked her head in slight interest, but the deal wasn't quite sealed just yet. "And all the men loved her!"

The meowth's black-tipped ear twitched, and she slowly nodded.

"Great." Lydia smiled, then stood up off the bed and pointed towards the hallway. "Well, I guess I'll go take a shower now. You can just stay here and get comfortable, and when I get back I can let you meet everyone else."

Scarlet responded by curling up on the bed and closing her eyes. When her new trainer didn't immediately leave, one of them briefly flickered open. "Oh! Um… Well, bye," she said, exiting the bedroom.

Due to the late hour, the shower rooms were a little less crowded than they usually were. A few girls still milled around brushing their teeth or chatting about their latest boyfriend, but for the most part, Lydia was the only one actually bathing. Not that she really minded, because she personally felt awkward showering when the area was so busy.

Lydia quickly chose a stall at the corner farthest from the sinks, closing the door tightly behind her and setting her pajamas down. As she stripped her outfit of the day off, she eyed it doubtfully. The jeans were ripped in several places from trudging through underbrush, and the shirt had a nasty dirt stain across the entire front.

Regretfully, she decided to trash it. She wasn't as obsessed with her clothes as Amber was by any means, but she still cared enough not to go around looking like _that._

After setting it down, she stepped into the shower and twisted the faucet. The hot water washed over her body, soothing her aching muscles and rinsing the dirt from her brown locks. After washing herself with sweet smelling soap and shampoo, she regretfully stepped out.

Lydia then pulled on her mareep pajamas and performed the rest of her nightly hygiene activities, and then set off down the hall towards her room. The heavenly feeling of being clean had sent her off into a tired daze. She just couldn't wait to lie down on her bed and drift of into a blissful sleep.

Barely two minutes later, she stood in front of her door. A lazy smile decorating her face, she pushed it open. A horrifying sight waited for her, and suddenly she wasn't so sleepy anymore. She gasped.

"Oh my…. What happened t-to all my stuff?"

Oh my was right. Her traveling bag, which she had left on the floor beside her bed, was open and all of her clothes lay scattered across the floor. Only, they weren't just strewn across the floor. They were shredded into pieces, into barely recognizable lumps of cloth.

Lydia rushed over to her bag, almost feeling like crying. After digging through it a bit, she discovered that all of her other possessions were perfectly safe. So why had someone decided to destroy all of her clothes? What in the world was she supposed to wear? She couldn't just walk around in her mareep pajamas!

When she finally stopped being on the verge of a heart attack, she noticed Scarlet sitting on the bed, calmly grooming herself. A familiar looking outfit lay beside her. She had known her mom had packed it, but why the heck did it, out of all the clothes she brought, have to be the only option left?

Horror written across her face, she picked up the blue tank-top and cherry red skirt she had worn what felt like ages ago. "Scarlet… Did _you _do this? _Why would you do this to me_?"

"Mreowww, Meowth, meow, _meow_!" The meowth replied, looking at her like she was insane. Almost like she thought she had done her a _favor _by shredding all of her clothes.

Lydia had never thought one of her beloved pokemon could make her feel like this, but she was mad. No, she wasn't just mad, she was absolutely furious. It was to the point where she honestly considered releasing Scarlet, but then she tried to tell herself she would only regret it later.

But really? Had she destroyed her own trainer's possessions, just because she obviously didn't think they were fashionable? Was it possible that a pokemon could be so obsessed over appearances? If she hadn't already realized it by being around her Smaug, Arya, and Scout, Lydia knew by now that each and every pokemon had a unique personality. Good and bad sides, just like a person.

"What the hell happened here?" A tired looking Cassandra was suddenly standing in the doorway, a dumbfounded expression on her freckled face. She must have come in when Lydia was so preoccupied with not falling over dead in shock.

"My new meowth just ripped up all of my clothes while I was in the shower… This is the only thing I have left, besides my pajamas," Lydia said sadly, holding up the embarrassing outfit in shame.

"Hah. Well, it looks like you're gonna have to travel around the rest of the region in that little skirt. Sucks for you."

**

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**

**AN:** And here we have my rather unusual explanation for Leaf's outfit. XD I wanted to do this because Lydia would probably never wear something like that on her own, yet she couldn't properly be based on Leaf without it.

About the meowth, I seriously considered naming her Dinah (After Alice's from "Alice and Wonderland's" cat. The book, not the movie) so she would at least be named after a cat. However, I've kind of been set on Scarlet, from "Gone with the Wind" of course, since before I even wrote the first chapter because they are both sorts of high class ladies ;) Elizabeth is from Pride and Prejudice, and Annabeth is from Percy Jackson.

**Random Question:** How long does it usually take for you guys to finish a chapter? I usually work on bits and pieces throughout the week, but if I'm really feeling motivated and I have plenty of time I could definitely finish one in two days.

-Alphinia


	11. Chapter 11: Lydia's Gift

**Disclaimer:** I do not own pokemon. I'm really starting to wish I could end that with "for the last time!" but unfortunately I have to keep doing these if I want to post my story… *Sigh*.

**Quick Note:** This chapter starts at a bit of a time jump. It's nothing big, just a couple days. I just figured I would skip over actually describing the walk to Vermillion, because really, how boring would that be? If you're really that curious, they took the underground path just like in the games.

**

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**Chapter 11: Lydia's Gift**

Lydia loved the ocean.

The sun was high in the clear blue sky, reflecting off the water in a brilliant array of colors. Several boats, all varying in size, traveled over its smooth surface to and from the famous Vermillion City Harbor. A few times, she even thought she caught a glimpse of a fin or other pokemon appendage breaking the surface. If her eyes weren't deceiving her, then the apparently thriving underwater community was just wise enough to avoid her and Cassandra's lonely fishing rods.

Although it obviously wouldn't be a help in her next gym battle, Lydia _really_ wanted a water pokemon. She had only recently discovered her newfound fascination with them, and now she was trying her hardest to find one. Unfortunately, not a single one of the local ones seemed to be hungry for fish bait today.

Momentarily distracted by how inviting the water looked, she inched her bare foot down off the pier and allowed it to dip into the water slightly. Lydia smiled softly, enjoying the pleasantly cool feel against her skin…

"Hey! What are you doing? I thought you were studying. If I have to sit here and go crazy bored, then you have to get that done," Cassandra griped from beside her, indicating the gym leader book in her lap. "Not that I think you should waist your time doing reading that in the first place. Just go battle him already!"

Lydia sighed. "Cassandra… I already read it. Several times." It was true. There was only one chapter on Lt. Surge, and it wasn't exactly long. Besides, she could only learn so much about which type of pokemon he used and his preferred moves.

She ignored the last half of the other girl's statement.

After mumbling something about 'nerds and their amazingly fast reading abilities', Cassandra said, "Well, what's the point of this? Why don't you go train?"

Lydia's face tinted pink. "Well, I really just wanted a water type… But if you want to go back to the center, then you can."

Besides, it wasn't as if she hadn't battled a couple trainers on the way to Vermillion, but she didn't mention this aloud.

Cassandra frowned slightly, as if she was pondering abandoning Lydia. She opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly her rod jerked forward violently. "Holy…" The girl didn't continue her phrase, probably for Lydia's sake since it was more likely than not something inappropriate.

The redhead yanked on the fishing pole, and soon began the process of reeling in her seemingly mighty catch. Lydia watched in anticipation as the line in the water became smaller and smaller, anxiously awaiting what exactly was on the other end.

Cassandra gave a final tug, and water splashed up around the hook as it as the pokemon attached to it emerged. Lydia's first impression was that it was a tiny, purple… _seashell?_ Seconds later, she noticed two eyes concealed inside of it along with a long pink tongue, and realized her mistake.

The catch of the day was a shellder.

"Awwh, it's so cute!"

"What the heck is this thing? It is a pokemon, right?"

Though Lydia already knew the smallest bits of information about the pokemon, she whipped out her pokedex. Partly for Cassandra's sake, partly because she was really eager to learn more about it. _"Shellder, the bivalve pokemon. It is encased in a shell that is harder than diamond. Inside, however, it is surprisingly tender."_

The shellder flopped around on the hook a bit, as if to remind them that it was still hanging there. Surprisingly, Cassandra took pity on it and lowered her rod a little so that its body was resting against the wooden planks beneath them.

"So… Are you gonna catch this thing or what?" Cassandra asked Lydia expectantly.

Lydia twirled her ponytail, which was now forced into a low side position due to the white hat newly adorning her head. It was a very tempting offer… but Cassandra was the one who had hooked the pokemon, not her. "Um… I think you should catch it."

"What? Why? I don't even want it, you take it," the redhead assured, looking at her like she was insane.

"Well, it was on your rod… It wouldn't be fair. Besides, I already have four pokemon. You have one."

"Whatever. Maybe it'll evolve into something that I can ride across water. I won't ever have to pay for a boat again…" Cassandra mumbled, releasing Gastly from his pokeball.

Lydia chose not to mention the fact that she highly doubted a cloyster would be eager to ferry her anywhere because they dwelled on the ocean floor. Instead, she watched with interest as Cassandra began ordering a series of commands to her pokemon. She had rarely seen the other girl battle, and was curious to see if she had a strategy other than having Gastly hide for half the match.

She noticed that Cassandra didn't show much enthusiasm while around pokemon in general, yet seemed far more confident than her. It was as if the redhead was only involved in training simply because it was common practice for travelers.

Surprisingly, the shellder fainted after only a few moves and was soon locked inside the new pokeball on Cassandra's belt. "So how much longer do we gotta stay here?" the redhead asked, openly frowning.

"I guess we can go back to the center now…" Lydia sighed. "Um… I hate to ask, but there's more than one thing I want to do… D-do you think you could run to the pokemart for me?"

She almost thought her friend was going to refuse, but Cassandra nodded nonetheless. "Oh, thank you. Could you see if they have the dig TM?" she asked, handing her friend a couple hundred pokedollars.

Cassandra snorted. "Honey. You need more than 200 pokedollars for a TM." Her golden eyes shone in amusement, and Lydia found herself briefly transfixed by the pure oddity of them before she remembered to reply.

She glanced down at her purse, her eyebrows crinkling in disappointment. Though she had earned a bit from battling on the way to Vermillion, the amount of bills inside it still seemed to be constantly decreasing. The only solution she could come up with was to simply train harder, and as a result, win more, but she couldn't always do that for free!

Hesitantly, she went ahead and handed Cassandra over half of her remaining money.

The pair headed the rest of the way down the pier, careful not to slip and fall into the salty water below. They returned their rented fishing rods, and soon found themselves back on the beach. Lydia could feel the sand's warmth even through her sneakers.

"Guess I'll see you later," Cassandra said soon after, giving a short nod over her shoulder.

Lydia went off in the direction opposite of her friend, and soon found herself wandering through the city. Silently, she thanked the legendaries that the pokemon center just happened to be close to the beach. If it wasn't, there was a good possibility that she would have found herself searching the streets for a ridiculously long time.

She walked through the sliding doors of the center, glancing around upon her entrance. Relieved that the lobby wasn't packed, she shuffled over to the videophones in the corner. Obviously, she was the only fledging trainer who had enough free time to spend a lovely afternoon inside, but for once, she was okay with her lack of social life.

Her fingers fumbled over the buttons as she dialed the familiar number. Lydia waited anxiously for the person on the other end to pick up, extremely worried that her calling would be an annoyance.

"Hello?" Professor Oak suddenly appeared on screen, professional looking as always. However, Lydia noted that he looked strangely tired. Perhaps he was stressed? "Oh, Lydia. It's great to hear from you, the others never bother to contact me."

She could tell from his tone of voice that he was mostly talking about Gary, but was too focused on fumbling with her ponytail to over analyze it. "Um… It's nice to see you t-too, professor."

Lydia was often nervous when talking to adults, but something about Professor Oak really commanded respect. It wasn't that she was afraid of him, she actually rather liked him. He just… seemed so important, and at times like this she almost felt like she was wasting his time or something.

"Yes. So you want to discuss the pokedex, I assume? How much progress have you made?"

Lydia winced. She only had four pokemon. Still, she _was_ making a point to take notes for him. Well, they were for herself as well, but she figured he would appreciate them too. "Not exactly… I, um, only have four pokemon so far."

"Oh." He looked a bit disappointed. "Well, then what do you need?"

"I-I just… I guess I just wanted to talk about a lot of things with you…" Lydia rambled, saying the first thing that came to her mind. Suddenly, she thought she saw a flash of dirty blond hair in the corner of the screen. "Hey, is that Amber?"

Professor Oak glanced over his shoulder awkwardly, as if he was reluctant to share the information with her. "Er, yes…"

Suddenly, the original reason Lydia had called was pushed to the back of her mind. She hadn't talked to Amber in what felt like _forever_. "How is she? Can I talk to her?"

Lydia's ears caught a muffled sentence in the background, something along the lines of 'Well, I don't have anything to say to her!' A door slamming followed soon after. She looked at the ground, recognizing Amber's voice at once. Was she really that mad about her leaving?

"Well, er, she's fine, I guess… but she's busy right now, dear," he replied, obviously trying to cover up his granddaughter's loud refusal for the sake of Lydia's feelings.

Lydia felt her eyes moisten, but she refused to cry. If Amber was really that mad, then she would just have to get past it in her own way. Her best friend wasn't currently there to make everything better at the moment, so she really had no other choice.

"Professor… Why did you choose me?" Lydia suddenly blurted, finally getting the question that had plagued her for so long off of her chest. "I mean, why not Amber? Why me?"

Professor Oak sighed, massaging his temples. "You have no idea how many times I've heard that since you all left. I wasn't aware Amber would be so hurt by my decision."

Lydia nodded shakily, anxiously awaiting the rest of his response. "Lydia, you have a thirst for knowledge that reminds me of myself. Intelligence is a gift, and I knew yours would only advance if I sent you on a journey. And you truly love pokemon. Amber is somewhat fond of them, of course, but that's not where her heart really is. I think you know it just as well as I."

"O-oh… Thank you p-professor. And could you just tell Amber that I miss her?"

"Of course." Professor Oak smiled . "Well, I must be getting back to work. I hope to hear from you again soon."

Lydia promised him that she would call again sometime and wished him farewell, and then the screen went dark. Despite the depressing news of Amber, she allowed a small smile to grace her face as she wiped a stray tear off her cheek.

Finally, she wouldn't have to go to sleep every night comparing herself to Gary and Red. Professor Oak thought she was special too, special enough to compare her to himself! She was honored, and though she wasn't completely convinced she was all that smart, the revelation still lifted loads off of her thoughts.

She got comfortable on a plushy couch next to the phones, deciding to just loaf around in the lobby until Cassandra returned. Luckily, barely fifteen minutes passed before she spotted the redhead making her way towards her. Once she arrived in front of the couch, she tossed a shiny silver disk at Lydia.

"There's your TM. You're lucky you got it, apparently a lot of newbie trainers get the same idea before challenging Surge," she hinted, looking at Lydia pointedly.

"Thanks again, Cassandra. I just really needed to take care of something that's been bothering me for a while," Lydia replied. She tried to hide her smile, highly amused that Cassandra hadn't seemed to think she would thank her without motivation.

"Yeah, yeah. So which pokemon are you teaching it too? Arya?"

Lydia shook her head and stood up, motioning for Cassandra to follow her out the door. Once they were outside, she grabbed a pokeball off of her belt. The fresh diamond sticker on it glinted in the sunlight as she pressed the release button, sending her newest team member out in a ray of red light.

Scarlett stared back at her trainer, her large almond shaped eyes unblinking. Her gaze wasn't quite challenging, but not one that a normal, obedient pokemon would have, either. Finally, she looked away and began nonchalantly grooming an imaginary imperfect spot on her fur.

Cassandra looked between her and her pokemon incredulously. "Lydia… No offense, but teaching that prissy meowth dig is probably the stupidest idea you've ever had. She barely listens to you when you battle, anyway."

Lydia's face heated up almost immediately. Cassandra was right about the battling part. Scarlett absolutely _hated _lifting a paw to fight. "B-but… She doesn't know many attacks, and I just thought she was my best option."

Scarlett even managed to look up from her grooming and shoot Cassandra a scathing look. However, she soon seemed to decide that she was far too good to waist her time scolding the girl, and her tongue was back to work once again.

Somewhat hesitantly, Lydia bent down on her knees so as to look the meowth in the eye. She wasn't exactly afraid of her own pokemon or anything, it was just kind of obvious that Scarlett wasn't particularly fond of her at the moment. The meowth tolerated her, yet hadn't quite warmed to her the way her other pokemon had. "Umm… hey, Scarlet? How about letting me give you this TM, so you can help me beat Surge?"

Lazily, she licked her paw and rubbed it over her black-tipped ear before giving the trainer her full attention. "Mreoww."

Lydia wasn't exactly sure what 'mreoww' meant, but the answer was pretty clear when Scarlett turned up her nose. Her mouth dropped open in surprise; she still wasn't accustomed to her own pokemon not accepting her every request without a second thought. She looked at Cassandra helplessly.

After snorting a bit rudely, Cassandra said, "I told you so."

Lydia sighed.

"Ahh, fine. Scarlett, Lydia will buy you something pretty if you learn dig for her. Maybe a_ fashionable_ hat or something. " Though Cassandra said the whole thing as a joke, Scarlett looked at Lydia with renewed interest. Still, she kept glancing back down at her paws, as if she couldn't comprehend getting them dirty with an attack like dig.

Lydia smiled despite herself. Sometimes, Cassandra's manipulating skills really amazed her. It would be nice if she could think of things like that to say to get out of her own problems. "Yeah. Maybe I can take you to the department store in Celadon or something," she offered truthfully. She wasn't a huge fan of the mall (She'd never actually been to a large one), but she was willing to compromise if it meant getting her pokemon to like her.

"Meow, meow," Scarlett purred, actually going as far as rubbing her side against Lydia's palm for a brief moment.

"Great. Thank you." Lydia smiled widely, enjoying the newfound affection the meowth was showing her. She played around with the disk a moment, having no idea how to activate it. However, once she stuck it onto Scarlet's forehead, the device suddenly began rapidly spinning before dissolving into the pokemon's skin.

Scarlett, shook her head, looking a bit disoriented for a few moments. "Hmm… Did it work?"

Cassandra shrugged, appearing relatively uninterested. "I don't know, I've never used a TM. Why don't we go try-"

Suddenly, a very girlish shriek pierced the air.

* * *

**AN:** Yeah… I kind of forgot about Cassandra's own team while I was busy with organizing everything else. I've thought about it a little, but something more important always comes up. I honestly don't know which other pokemon I'm going to have her catch, though she may not ever reach a full team. Also, I felt that the little talk with Professor Oak was something that Lydia's needed pretty badly since the beginning of the story.

And yeah, this chapter was technically late, but I knew it was going to be and it was actually posted on my profile (Which, if you don't check it occasionally, you really should). Basically, I've been feeling stressed lately and I thought skipping a week would relieve some of it. I don't want writing to transform into something I have to get done as opposed to something I enjoy doing.

**Shout out:** I think I'm going to start letting you guys know when I find a decent story. It is, after all, so terribly difficult to find one. Anyway, this week's shout out goes to _"Gwen's Travels: Eon Signs"_ by EmeraldCelebi13.

-Alphinia


	12. Chapter 12: Attack of the Fans

**Disclaimer:** I don't own pokemon, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Harry Potter.

Muchas gracias, as always, reviewers.

* * *

**Chapter 12: Attack of the Fans**

Silence clung to the atmosphere after the sudden sound, and both girls stood frozen. After a few seconds, several other screams sounded. This time, they didn't stop.

Lydia attempted to shake herself out of her shocked state to look around. Her ears soon trained in on a space a few yards down the street from them. The ruckus appeared to be coming from a simple looking, wooden building with a thatched green roof. Even through all the messy scrawls on its sign, she could make out the title "Pokemon Fan Club".

The door was suddenly thrust back on its hinges and a young girl darted outside. "Help! Help! A crazy barbie is trying to steal all of our babies!" she screamed, clutching a singed-looking clefable in her arms as she took off down the street.

Cassandra's eyes narrowed so much they almost looked like a pair of golden slits. It reminded Lydia strangely of Scarlett. "Let's go check it out."

Lydia frowned. She was beginning to think trouble followed her wherever she went. It was like she was some walking bad luck charm or something. "Cassandra, I-I don't know. We should probably let the police handle it…"

Cassandra sighed in exasperation. "Listen, Lydia. This isn't like all those books you read. This is the real world. Someone could really get hurt."

She was torn. If she didn't act, whoever was attacking the fan club could hurt someone-or worse, someone could die. She preferred not to think too much about the second option. On the other hand, if they did play hero, it would also put their own safety at risk.

Suddenly, she appreciated the protagonists in her books on a whole new level. Had Harry felt like this before he fought the death eaters? How had Atticus Finch made the decision to endanger his family for something he believed in?

Lydia took a deep breath and nodded her head in determination. "Let's go," she said. Her voice didn't manage to hide her nervousness, but for once she wasn't entirely embarrassed by it.

Cassandra's arm shot out and locked securely around her elbow, sending her surging forward. She barely had time to grab Scarlett (Who had been busy grooming herself) in her free hand before she found herself being drug down to street towards the fan club.

Her short legs struggled to keep up with her taller friend all the way up until they found themselves standing in front of the endangered building. Cassandra attempted to peer inside, but abruptly pulled back when a sudden burst of flame sailed through the doorframe.

A furry, cream shape followed soon after, flying though the entrance and successfully crashing into the sign a few feet away. The pokemon angrily got to its feet, and Lydia realized with a shock that it was the exact same ninetales she had battled in Mt. Moon.

A magnificent, flaming horse with a horn atop its head came next, its nostrils flaring in warning. It pawed at the ground with its hoof, and it was pretty clear that said hoof had also been Ninetales's ticket out the door.

Another unfortunately familiar figure exited the fan club last, an annoyed look on her perfectly made-up face. "Ugh. Ninetales, take care of that stupid rapidash already. If you lose again, I swear…" Elite number six trailed off, but the threat didn't leave her eyes.

Apparently noticing that the rapidash's trainer didn't seem to be around to help it at the moment, Cassandra stepped forward and released both Ghastly and her newly captured shellder. She turned to Lydia seriously. "I'll take care of this. You go inside and make sure everything's okay."

Elite number six blinked and her gaze shot up to the two girls in front of her. Her face turned a rather unattractive shade of red and her hands balled up into fists. "_You again_? What are you doing here? I should _kill_ you for humiliating me in Mt. Moon!"

Lydia fingered her ponytail in doubt, hesitant to leave Cassandra alone to face such a dangerous opponent. The girl did have a seemingly powerful ally in the rapidash, but she wasn't sure if she could count on that to turn the tide in her favor. As she examined the redhead, she realized that she didn't seem scared in the slightest.

She envied her bravery. She really did.

Finally, Lydia gave her a weak nod and started towards the nearly wrecked building. Her feet carried her up the steps, and her gut dropped when she walked through the door.

Several people occupied the room. The vast majority of them lay hidden under tables or behind furniture, while a few unlucky ones (Either that, or the ones that were too slow to steal the prime spots) hovered around the corners cowering in fear. A muscled, blue duck stood in the center of the room, glaring at Lydia with its beady eyes and twirling a sack full of pokeballs around its finger.

"Golduck duck duck!" It cawed, as if daring her to make a single move against it.

"Hey, g-give those pokeballs back!" she shouted (Well, it was actually more like a strained whimper, but that was beside the point) at it in an extremely poor attempt to be intimidating.

It looked at her a moment as if she was insane before cackling madly at her obvious failure. Scarlett, who she had almost forgotten during all of the commotion, squirmed in her arms in obvious disgust at the spit flying from the other pokemon's mouth.

Lydia's cheeks burned brightly, but she still managed to reach her belt and grab a pokeball despite her embarrassment. She dropped her meowth onto the ground and sent the heart-stickered pokeball in her hand flying. Arya appeared in a flash of white light, calm as always. Scarlett stepped over to the side, looking as if she was contemplating whether or not the battle at hand was worthy of her participation.

"Arya, use poison sting," Lydia commanded at once. As weak as its initial hit was, poison sting was quickly making itself into the girl's list of favorite attacks.

The nidoran fired her purple darts within seconds, her speed for the particular move having noticeably increased from when she was first captured. Unfortunately, the experience of the fully evolved pokemon she was battling made her mere week of special training approximately the equivalent of a skitty's size to a wailord's.

Consequently, the golduck simply opened its bill and let loose a small burst of water, completely washing away her attack and continuing on to collide with the nidoran. It threw back its head and laughed again, its flippers clutching at its stomach as if it could barely breathe from the humor or the situation.

Lydia watched in frustration as Arya shook herself off, looking relatively unharmed. She noticed Scarlett grooming a paw at her feet, and suddenly an idea hit her.

"Hey, Scarlett," she began quietly. The cat pokemon's ear twitched, but other than that she gave no acknowledgement that she was listening. "Now would be a good time to try out that new dig attack. Remember, if you do good I'll buy you something nice when we get to a place like Goldenrod or Saffron."

Scarlett made a show of finishing her grooming before looking at her trainer and nodding slightly. "Thanks. Just stay underground until I say so, okay?"

Progress was slow at first, probably mostly due to the wooden floor underneath them, but eventually Scarlett's strong claws managed to break the surface. The meowth gave a regretful look and then jumped into the freshly dug hole and out of sight.

Golduck was apparently growing bored from the lack of action, as it soon began repeating its water gun from earlier.

"Arya, try to get in close range and use double kick." Lydia watched anxiously as her own pokemon attempted to scoot around the constant water attacks and sneak in a hit of her own. The steps the nidoran took vaguely reminded her of some highly sophisticated dance, but something told her that a professional would pull it off with a lot more grace.

Needless to say, Arya didn't manage to land her attack with her fur perfectly dry, but she appeared to have a decent amount of energy remaining. Admittedly, the golduck barely seemed fazed, but on the upside, it definitely wasn't applying much variety or strategy to its offense. It seemed that the absence of its trainer (No matter how lacking she seemed in actual ability) was a major roadblock in the water type's chance of victory.

Suddenly, Lydia forced herself out of her thoughts, mentally berating herself for getting so caught up in them again. "Alright, Scarlett, come out!"

A few agonizingly slow seconds passed, and she almost thought that the meowth had reconsidered her agreement to battle. However, just when she was seriously beginning to doubt that they could win the floor underneath Golduck burst and Scarlett's lithe body hurtled from underneath it. The unexpected collision sent the water type sprawling onto its back, giving Lydia the signal that now was the perfect chance to strike.

Unable to contain her smile, she said, "Arya, poison sting again. Scarlett… use scratch."

While Scarlett was actually taking the time to make a quick, hard swipe right across the golduck's face, Arya rapidly fired off a series of poison darts towards the fallen pokemon. Lydia's smile became a grin and her two pokemon shared a friendly glance at the accomplishment. Unfortunately, their celebrating was short lived.

Golduck was on its feet in seconds, and though Lydia noticed some purple barbs embedded in its thigh, all traces of the cackling pokemon it had been before were gone. A stray drop of blood rolled down its forehead (Courtesy of Scarlett's claws) and its ruby eyes narrowed. Quick as a flash, it knocked both of Lydia's smaller pokemon aside with a speedy motion of its strong flipper.

Scarlett landed right on her feet with the natural grace she possessed, but Arya wasn't so lucky. She rolled a few yards away from the golduck before coming to a rough halt. The nidoran struggled to climb to her feet, but it was obvious that the water guns from earlier had more of an impact than Lydia had originally thought. Deciding that her pokemon's safety wasn't worth jeopardizing, she returned her and tossed another pokeball onto the field to keep her two on one advantage.

Scout materialized before her, fluttering her wings joyfully despite the situation. The pokemon even went as far as to turn a few flips in the air, showing off her fantastic aerial abilities. "Freeee, freee," she cooed, her antenna bouncing.

Golduck glared daggers at her, obviously objecting to her overpowering good mood. Still clutching the bag of pokeballs in one flipper, it shot yet another water gun attack, this time towards Scout. The butterfree cried out in surprise, barely gliding out of the way before the liquid collided with her fine wings.

"Scout, try your confusion," Lydia said eventually. What she really wanted to do was retrieve the captive pokemon, but she knew Golduck wouldn't allow her that so easily.

Scout closed her large red eyes in concentration. An invisible wave of psychic energy washed over Golduck, sending it hurtling into a nearby table. A woman curled up under the table let out a shriek of fright, but the pokemon ignored her, its attention solely focused on Scout.

Lydia observed as the two pokemon battled, occasionally giving Scout (Or more rarely, Scarlett) another order. She knew good and well that the only thing saving her own pokemon was her new capability to fly, which she was eternally grateful for. The golduck's condition was something else she noticed. After a few battles with Arya, Lydia's eye was now more trained to catch the effects a poisoning had on a pokemon, thus allowing her to better keep track of Golduck's deteriorating health.

Scarlett sauntered over and sat down at Lydia's feet, not having as much inclusion in the battle as Scout. "You've done really good so far, thank you," Lydia said, giving the cat pokemon a small smile.

Scarlett acted as if she didn't enjoy the praise, but Lydia had the slightest feeling that it was really something she welcomed. "Do you think you could get that bag away from Golduck?" she asked.

The meowth looked at her in a demeaning way, as if saying _'Of course I can, are you crazy?_' Lydia laughed slightly, but stopped when she remembered Scarlett still wasn't a completely obedient pokemon. Seeing her somewhat crestfallen expression, Scarlett rolled her eyes and used her catlike stealth to creep around the room.

Its attention still zeroed in on harming Scout, the golduck had next to no idea what else was going on around it. Besides that, it was weakening fast from the poisoning and Lydia wouldn't doubt for it to collapse anytime now. As a result, it was taken completely by surprise when Scarlett suddenly leapt over its head, her needle sharp claws snatching the bag out of its grip.

Golduck looked absolutely flabbergasted, but its response was cut off by a loud crashing from outside. "By order of the Vermillion City Police, I demand you halt this instant!" A voice called.

Elite number six came charging though the entrance, her usually perfect golden hair in a mess. She quickly pulled out a pokeball and returned her golduck, not even bothering to spare a scowl at the apparent absence of the stolen pokemon. Her gaze was intent on the window, and her intentions were clear.

Lydia struggled to find a way to stop her, to help to police catch her. "Scout! Um, u-use string shot to tie her up, hurry!"

A thread of sticky substance appeared from Scout's mouth, getting caught up in Elite number six's legs and causing her to topple to the floor. Soon, her entire body was restrained by the butterfree's string. "You little-"The young woman's threats were silenced as one last piece of string shot settled over her mouth.

Lydia stood quietly as a swarm of police officers came in and surrounded the blonde, still in complete shock over the situation. Cassandra followed them in, and she appeared to be completely unscathed as she headed straight in her direction. "Wow, Lydia. I never would have guessed _you_ would be capturing wanted criminals. I didn't know you had it in you!" she joked, though a hint of the true impact the situation lingered in her eyes.

The rapidash that had helped her battle stepped inside, its hooves grating over the damaged wood floor. "Charlie!" an old man exclaimed, leaping up from his position behind the couch. The rapidash, or Charlie, nuzzle his face into the man's suit affectionately.

Straightening his top hat, he turned to Lydia and Cassandra. "Girls, thank you!" he exclaimed dramatically, dropping to his knees and hugging the bottom of Lydia's calves. She blushed brightly, glancing around the room to see if anyone was looking at the odd display.

The man got up and cleared his throat, as if he hadn't just went crazy on them. "I'm the chairmen of this fan club, and I can't thank you enough for helping to save all the pokemon," he said, indicating all the other trainers gathered around the bag to collect their respective pokeballs.

"Um… Y-your welcome, sir…" Lydia said shyly.

"We know," Cassandra replied at the same time, still appearing slightly weirded out by the old man.

He laughed heartily, rubbing his plump belly. "Well, I assure you that your actions won't go unrewarded. I assume that you're traveling trainers, yes?"

They both nodded in confirmation.

"Fantastic!" he bellowed. "I, being the head of this renewed club, have quite a few connections across Kanto. If you ever need a favor of any kind, just give me a call," he finished, handing them each an orange card (Decorated with rapidash, of course) from his coat pocket. The fan club phone number and address were inscribed on the card, along with a few cheesy slogans.

Cassandra looked relatively disappointed with the 'reward', but Lydia covered up for her by saying, "T-thank you."

He looked like he wanted to continue conversing with them, probably to ask them about their pokemon, but he was ushered away when an officer holding a notepad wandered over to have a chat with Cassandra and Lydia. After taking both their names and witness reports, he said, "You two are awfully lucky. The Elites are a dangerous group, and I advise you to leave them to the professionals in the future."

"But-"Cassandra began, but he held up a hand to stop her. She scowled.

"Yes, we appreciate the benefit of capturing one of them, but trust me on this. Stay _away_ from the Elites, you two are fortunate to be alive." He walked away, leaving both girls to mull over their thoughts. Cassandra stood with an ugly expression on her face and her arms crossed, while Lydia's mild irritation was overridden by her worries.

Something told her that this encounter was far from the last she would hear from the Elites.

* * *

**AN:** Yeah, I know I didn't really say who the 'girlish scream' was from last chapter, but it was supposed to be the fan club chairman. Lol.

I'm not even going to try to excuse the lateness… The only thing I can say is that I haven't felt much desire to write this story recently and I seem to be getting shorter and shorter on my supply of free time. But guys, I worked almost constantly last night and today to complete this, so be grateful! xD

**Random Question: **Do you feel comfortable writing more than one story at a time? I'm not sure if I could do it, but I've been tempted to start another lately. If I did, I'm almost positive that one or the other wouldn't regularly be updated. After all, I barely manage to get this one updated.

**Next Chapter:** _VS Lt. Surge_

-Alphinia


	13. Chapter 13: VS Lt Surge

**Disclaimer:** I don't own pokemon.

I just want to give a special thank you to Sage of Emeralds and TheSpanishInquisition for helping motivate me to get off my butt and continue this. I'd also like to thank all of my other reviewers.

* * *

**Chapter 13: VS Lt. Surge**

The sky was overcast with dull, gray clouds, giving the whole city of Vermillion a slightly gloomy feel. A light rain drizzled down on the area, causing Lydia's damp bangs to plaster uncomfortably to the side of her face. The rest of her hair was nearly hidden under her white hat in a bun, seeing as the humid air made it remind her unfortunately of a zigzagoon.

"There it is," Cassandra said from beside her, her pale arm outstretched and pointing towards a nearby building.

Lydia nodded and the pair began running towards Lt. Surge's gym, dodging stray puddles and trying to get out of the rain as soon as possible. Soon, they were under the comfort of its roof and she was able to inspect her outfit for any major damage. She allowed a small frown to grace her face.

Her red and white sneakers had light splotches of mud on them, something she really hoped wouldn't stain. She quickly looked over the rest of her attire to make sure the water hadn't made it stick to her too tightly (It hadn't, thank goodness). Oddly, the outfit had actually been better suited to rough conditions than any of her t-shirts and jeans. Apparently, the official pokemon league logo decorating it was for more than looks. After self-consciously pulling the skirt further over her thighs, she looked up at Cassandra and signaled for her to continue inside.

Just as the other girl reached for the door, however, something vibrated in Lydia's bag and she heard her familiar pokegear ringtone begin going off. Sighing, she reached into her pack and pulled the device out. Who in the world would be calling her?

"Hello?" she answered, scrunching up her eyebrows slightly.

"Lydia?" It was her mother's voice, she realized at once.

"Mom? Hey," she replied, pleasantly surprised. She had talked to her mother only a handful of times since starting her journey, and it was impossible to deny that she really missed the woman.

"Lydia, sweetie, something's happened," her mother said, sounding oddly distant. "Listen, I need you to come home as soon as you can, okay?"

"B-but…Huh?" She glanced at Cassandra, who was looking back with a curious expression etched on her face. She felt her stomach drop in fear and anticipation of what was coming next. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, everyone's fine, I think. I just need you to come home, okay? I'll explain everything when you get here. Bye honey, I love you." With that, the click of the phone hanging up was audible from the other side of the line.

Lydia stowed her pokegear back into her bag, feeling utterly confused and worried. If everyone was alright, she couldn't fathom why her mother would give her a random, urgent call like that.

"Hey, you okay? What was that all about?" Cassandra piped, looking uncharacteristically concerned.

"I don't really know…" Lydia answered honestly, looking at the ground. "My mom just told me she wants me to come home as soon as I can…"

Now it was Cassandra's turn to frown, but the girl soon shook it off with a casual shrug of her shoulders. "So what? She would've told you if something really bad happened, and we can just head back to Pallet through the digglett tunnel after your battle and then circle around so you can challenge Brock. It'll be to our advantage, see?"

"You mean you'll come with me all the way back that far?" Lydia asked, surprised. She had expected returning to Pallet would mean separating from Cassandra, something she really didn't want to happen. The only remaining problem lied with what exactly her mother wanted her to come home for in the first place.

"Sure. I mean, it's kind of annoying, but… Well, you're my friend," Cassandra said, actually looking a bit unsure of herself. Lydia was stunned, never having seen the other girl show even the smallest sign of vulnerability before.

"Wow, thanks, Cassandra," she said, giving her a soft smile.

Cassandra cleared her throat loudly and spun back around to the door as if nothing had happened. "Yeah, yeah. Now let's go get you another badge."

The inside of the gym was fairly plain compared to Misty's. The walls and floor were colored in dull shades of brown, while an area in the center of the room was painted with white lines to signify the battle area. The only thing that even remotely marked the building off as an electric type gym was the lightening bolt shape decorating the center of the floor.

As she had in the battle against Misty, Cassandra wandered off to sit on the bench situated on the side of the field. "You better crush him," she called over her shoulder with a grin. Lydia blushed slightly, but her embarrassment was unexpectedly interrupted.

"So, little girl. You've come to challenge me?" A man stood up from his shadowy seat across the battlefield, covering the distance between them in a few long strides. Lydia jumped slightly at the gym leader's sudden appearance.

According to "Gym Leaders: Kanto Addition", Lt. Surge had fought in a war. It was a scary thought to Lydia, that the man standing before her had likely seen countless people die right before his own eyes. She felt herself tremble slightly as she craned her neck to look up at him. His spikey blond hair and fierce expression only served to intimidate her further, but somehow she managed to squeak, "Yes."

He laughed gruffly at her response. Lydia's cheeks reddened when she realized he was making fun of her. "I-I'm Lydia Leaf from P-pallet Town."

"Alright kid, let's see what you got," Lt. Surge said, returning to his side of the gym. He signaled a group of trainers lounging in the corner and one young man reluctantly got up from his seat and took his place as their referee. "We'll use three pokemon each. If you somehow manage to knock out all of mine you get a badge."

Lydia gave him a shaky nod and focused on calming herself as she watched him grab a pokeball from his large, military style belt. _'It's ok. You can do this, you've gotten better. You beat Misty,'_ she tried telling herself, but then again, a tomboy in a swimsuit could hardly compare to someone like Lt. Surge.

"Pikachu, you're up, cadet!" he bellowed, as if he were still commanding fellow soldiers in the army. The small yellow mouse he released crouched down in a ready battle position, sparks dancing along its cheeks excitedly. The sight reminded her immediately of Red, making her briefly wonder (For approximately the thousandth time) if he was safe.

She took a deep breath, holding the pokeball in her right hand with a death grip. For her first round, she had already decided to play it safe with someone she thought she could depend on. "Do your best, Smaug," she said quietly, tossing the red and white sphere out onto the field.

Miraculously, the mere sight of her charmander's familiar face calmed her nerves slightly. After glancing around at his surroundings, he himself appeared to be torn. Anxious emotions, the fear of failure, those both dominated his expressions. Yet, to Lydia, the fiery look in his eyes also revealed his excitement about finally getting a chance at his long awaited gym battle. She just hoped his determination would overcome his shyness, or else she knew she wouldn't stand a chance at winning the badge.

Lt. Surge didn't hesitate to jump right into the action. "Eliminate that charmander with shock wave!"

The pikachu, still looking strangely giddy, sparked for a second time, sending out a wave of blue electricity towards Smaug. The attack was landed so quickly Lydia barely had a chance to hope (In vain) that he dodged it, much less to collect her senses and order him to use her previously planned strategy.

Smaug climbed to his feet, a bit of static still running over his orange scales. Lydia was immensely relieved to see that he looked more shaken up than really damaged. He glanced back at her for a millisecond, his normally cheerful blue green irises flashing fiercely. Noticing this, Lydia felt a wave of determination surge through her. If nothing else, she _would_ give Lt. Surge something to remember, little girl or not. For Smaug's sake.

"Don't let up! Shock wave again!"

This time, Lydia was more prepared. "Alright Smaug, try stabbing your claws into the floor!" she shouted out quickly. For a moment, she worried that she had spoken to hurriedly and he hadn't understood, but the fire type soon reacted by jabbing his tiny claws into the ground below him. Small as they were, they were still effective and a good portion of the electricity was dispersed throughout the floor, ultimately decreasing the attack's power.

Both Lt. Surge and his Pikachu seemed briefly distracted by what had just happened, so Lydia rapidly added, "Now try your ember!"

Smaug eagerly complied, opening his jaws and letting loose a few small fireballs. As to be expected with pikachu in its unfocused state, the flames made contact and successfully scorched the mouse pokemon's brilliant yellow fur. It even went as far as to let out a tiny whimper of pain, which had Lt. Surge sending it silent disapproving looks.

"Don't give up now. You can still take out that charmander."

And so the battle went. Lt. Surge would order his pikachu to use shock wave, and then Smaug would weaken the attack's effect before launching an assault of his own. Both pokemon were noticeably drained after a few turns, Pikachu more so than Smaug. Upon evaluating both of their conditions, Lydia couldn't help but scrunch up her eyebrows in thought. Lt. Surge's pikachu wasn't a pushover by any means, yet it still seemed lacking for a gym leader's pokemon. Unless, that is, Lydia's training had miraculously improved her skills so much that Misty wasn't as strong as she remembered her being.

Doubtful.

Finally, Lt. Surge seemingly relented and realized that just using shock wave wasn't going to win him this battle. He scowled, looking visibly displeased that Smaug was still standing. "Quick attack!"

The mouse pokemon abruptly became nothing but a yellow and brown streak, knocking into the unprepared Smaug several times before managing to make him loose his balance and stumble. Lydia looked on worriedly as he struggled to return to his feet, knowing that if she lost him this early on in the match she was doomed.

Amazingly, a subtle orange glow formed around his worn body and the flame on his tail enlarged to at least three times its normal size. With this newfound energy, the charmander grit his teeth and stood back up steadily. "Mander, char!" he cried, dropping his jaw and enveloping Pikachu in a massive burst of flame.

His ember attack had suddenly transformed from a few relatively weak flames to a raging inferno of pure power. Eventually, the fire disappeared to reveal the unconscious form of Lt. Surge's pikachu. The man in question rolled his eyes at his pokemon's quick defeat, but didn't miss a beat in returning the creature.

"_Blaze, the ability that powers up fire type moves in a pinch," _Lydia's pokedex hummed, seeing as she had whipped it out the moment she realized her opponent didn't currently have a pokemon to worry her on the field. She blinked, absorbing this newfound information about Smaug.

"Voltorb, you better make up for your fellow cadet's failure!" Lt. Surge yelled.

Lydia immediately recognized the pokeball-like pokemon now rolling around in front of him, yet she still pointed her pokedex in its direction to see if it told her anything to help gain the upper hand. _"Voltorb, the ball pokemon. It looks just like a pokeball, but approach with caution. It is known to electrocute or even explode on contact."_

"Ember, Smaug," she ordered, knowing she needed to use his extra-powerful state while she still had the opportunity. Her pokemon obediently complied, but just before his fire could begin to lick at Voltorb's hard shell, Lt. Surge decided to demand an attack of his own.

"Explosion," he said cooly. A shiver went down Lydia's spine, but she was helpless to do anything but watch as the electric type suddenly combusted. She shielded her eyes from the smoke and held tightly onto the trainer podium as the attack shook the entire gym.

"Smaug! Smaug, are you okay? " she screamed, suddenly frantic for his safety. What if he didn't make it? She'd never seen him (or any of her pokemon, for that matter) take on an attack nearly that powerful. The smoke cleared away after a few tense minutes, revealing the limp forms of both Smaug and Voltorb.

"Relax," Lt. Surge said, noticing her distress. "Trainers use explosion every day, and if I thought it was dangerous I wouldn't use it. After a trip to the pokemon center your charmander will be fine."

"Oh," she mumbled, dully noting that she wasn't quite sure her and Lt. Surge's definition of "dangerous" were in agreement. Lydia, now feeling rather stupid and even a bit embarrassed, returned Smaug to his pokeball and clutched at Arya's.

She released her loyal nidoran with a tiny flick of her risk, and then nervously turned her attention to Lt. Surge's final pokemon. At once, she knew the yellow-brown rodent was a raichu. It was a species she hadn't ever met in person, yet she knew a good bit about them due to Red owning a member of its evolutionary line for years. Personally, she didn't find this one hardly as cute as she'd expected, though that was probably due to the rather intimidating expression it dawned.

"Come on, Arya…" She gulped, waiting for Lt. Surge to make the first move. However, it soon became obvious that he had no intention of doing just that. It was odd, especially after his eagerness to attack her pokemon earlier. Another strange thing she noted was the confident-almost cocky, even-air excluding from him. Since this was his last pokemon, shouldn't he be a little more on edge?

Feeling like she was missing out on something important, she hesitantly gave Arya the first command. "A-alright girl. Start off with poison sting."

As the nidoran began shooting purple darts from her mouth, Raichu instinctively moved to avoid the attack. However, Arya managed to simply alter the direction of her poison sting slightly and strike her opponent in the side. Lydia noticed with a mild amount of satisfaction that a couple of the darts were buried in the electric type's fur. It wouldn't be a major poisoning by any means, but she had anticipated Raichu would be fast and therefor she considered any contact a success.

Lt. Surge didn't seem particularly pleased about his pokemon being poisoned by the very first attack, but he still didn't appear nervous in the least. Actually, his demeanor was beginning to unnerve Lydia slightly. The match currently seemed to be leaning largely in her favor, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the gym leader still had something up his sleeve.

"Shock wave," he said, looking on with a smirk.

Raichu curled up its tiny brown fists and sparked its cheeks briefly before letting lose a massive wave of blue electricity that dwarfed Pikachu's. The energy washed over Arya, causing her to drop down to her knees in pain upon contact. When the attack was over, burn marks covered her fur and she breathed heavily, indicating that Raichu's shock wave had been every bit as powerful as it looked.

Lydia clutched at the bar of the trainer podium in a slight panic. "Arya! Are you okay?"

Arya shakily nodded to her trainer, squinting her eyes while she regained her footing. "Ni, ni." She had definitely taken some serious damage from the previous attack, and Lydia silently promised to recall her if she began thinking that battling in poor health was taking too much of a negative toll her nidoran. Other trainers seemed to be able to look past the violence in the sport of battling and enjoy it to the fullest, but no matter how many she participated in she just couldn't seem to get used to it.

Lydia shook herself out of her thoughts, chiding herself for starting to lose her nerve so easily. "Double kick," she said quickly, calling out the first attack that came to mind.

Arya, who was still breathing a bit heavier than normal, charged forward to pelt her opponent with her powerful feet, but she was too late. Raichu's cheeks were already alight, and the moment she made contact with its fur the whole arena lit up with electricity. The energy dimmed seconds later, Lydia already having sadly pulled out Arya's pokeball to return her. After taking a close range hit like that, she knew her pokemon didn't stand a chance.

Lt. Surge chuckled slightly and crossed his arms, causing Lydia's dwindling confidence to drop even more. Now that they were back on equal footing in terms of sheer number of pokemon, she was beginning to doubt herself again. Lt. Surge's Raichu was extremely powerful, probably more so than both of his other pokemon combined.

Well, at least now she knew what his secret weapon was.

Sighing, she pulled out her third pokeball and pushed the release button, aiming it so the pokemon inside would appear right at her feet. Scarlett materialized, looking as refined and ladylike as ever. "Alright Scarlett," Lydia began, almost nervously. She could never be sure if the cat pokemon was in a cooperative mood or not, but she was crossing her fingers that today was an agreeable day for her. "Just like we practiced, okay?"

Scarlett eyed her for a moment, considering her. Her whiskers twitched. Much to Lydia's intense relief, the cat pokemon finally inclined her head briefly in agreement before trotting out onto the battlefield.

Lit Surge let out a booming laugh at the sight of her, clutching at his sides tightly as if his chest was about to burst. "You honestly think you can beat me with that cissy cat? Good luck." Raichu laughed along and his trainer began wiping at his eyes.

Scarlett stiffened, and then she turned her head to look at Lydia. An angry look brewed in the golden depths of her eyes, and Lydia nodded at her with as much confidence as she could muster. She and Scarlett may not have been perfectly in sink just yet, but they both wanted to teach Lt. Surge that being little and female didn't necessarily equal weakness.

"Dig!" Lydia ordered, quickly so as to avoid a shock wave from Raichu early on.

With almost blinding speed, Scarlet scraped at the ground until she eventually disappeared down a long, dark tunnel. Raichu glanced from side to side, waiting for the moment his opponent would reveal herself and become vulnerable to his overwhelming power.

Each second felt like several minutes to Lydia as she waited for her pokemon to attack. She knew Scarlet could never match Raichu when it came to brute strength, but maybe, just _maybe_, she could best him in other ways if they were lucky. She fingered a stray lock of hair nervously.

Suddenly, the dirt underneath Raichu erupted and a mud spattered figured collided with him. The electric type let out small gasp of surprise and stumbled around, trying to fight off the writhing meowth as she bit and clawed at him furiously. Soon, his superior weight proved too much for her and she was tossed several yards away.

Amazingly, Scarlet managed to twist in midair so she didn't land belly up, yet her slim shoulder still met the floor rather roughly. She was on her feet soon after, looking extremely ticked off and ready to rip someone to pieces.

"Shock wave," Lt. Surge ordered in a lazy tone, though Lydia thought she caught a glimpse of surprise behind his gaze.

"Scarlet, put your claws in the ground!" Lydia cried as Raichu's yellow cheeks lit up with electricity. Scarlet glanced back at her incredulously, as if she couldn't believe her trainer had dared to order her to do something that might damage her most prized possessions.

Having ignored Lydia's command, Scarlet's dirt-marked fur was soon sparking with blue energy. The cat pokemon shut her eyes in pain, and Lydia had to force herself not to look away. Raichu's shock wave drug on for much longer than Pikachu's had, but somehow, Scarlet managed to see through what was likely blinding pain and hooked the claws on all four of her paws deeply into the gym floor.

The effect was immediate. Much of the electricity surging through Scarlet was dispersed into the ground and she received far less damage from the attack than she would've had she not eventually followed through with what Lydia had asked her to do.

Lydia allowed herself a sigh of relief before saying, "Use dig again! Try not to stay above ground for too long this time."

Scarlet didn't even hesitate to comply.

The battled continued in much the same fashion as it had begun. Scarlet would use her dig attack to sneak up on Raichu before quickly diving back into the safety of her tunnels. Sometimes, her attacks were evaded completely or she herself was struck with a powerful attack, but her superior speed was helping her hold her own rather well against her much more powerful opponent. Lydia was pleasantly surprised to find that Lt. Surge's smug demeanor had disappeared entirely.

As Scarlet retreated underground yet again, Lt. Surge gritted his teeth with anger. Raichu had just missed a chance to attack Scarlet, and he was panting heavily from the combined effects of being relentlessly battered and Arya's slow moving poison. Lydia felt her hopes rise.

A determined expression briefly replaced Lt. Surge's scowl. "Raichu, follow that cat into its hole and use Thunder. No holding back!"

"Scarlet, no! Come up!" Lydia called frantically, but she was too late. Raichu had already forced his way into one of Scarlet's to-small tunnels, and soon, the entrance to each one of them was lit up like a Christmas tree. The force of the attack vibrated the ground, and dust began to emerge out of the holes along with the light.

Cracks appeared across parts of the surface.

Lydia gasped. The floor was already weakened by Scarlet's mini tunnel network, and combined with Raichu's powerful thunder attack, it could easily collapse! Apparently Lt Surge noticed the danger as well because his eyes widened and he cried, "Raichu, stop!"

Despite the gym leader's efforts, the ground rumbled briefly before an area around the center of the floor caved in completely. Lydia shrieked, abandoning her position at the trainer podium and running as close as she dared to the rubble. She couldn't approach it any more out of fear that her weight would cause even more of the ground to give way.

Lt. Surge had no such fears, however, stepping expertly through the mess and to where he apparently thought their pokemon were located. Lydia watched him with fearful brown eyes, barely acknowledging Cassandra when she came to stand beside her.

After tossing aside a few pieces of rubble, Lt. lifted something in his heavily muscled arms and approached the young girls. "They'll survive, they only fainted," he grunted, handing Scarlet's limp form to Lydia and returning Raichu to his pokeball. She nearly cried with relief.

Lydia followed the veteran's example and also returned Scarlet. "T-thank you," she mumbled, turning to leave. At the moment, she couldn't care less about losing the battle. She simply wanted to get Scarlet and her other fallen companions to a pokemon center as fast as possible.

"Where do you think you're going? I have to give you your badge!" Lt. Surge said in annoyance, shoving something shiny into her hands.

Lydia was shocked. "But she didn't win!" Cassandra exclaimed in surprise, saving her from answering.

Lt. Surge boomed a laugh. "League rules say that you have to knock out all of my pokemon, and you did!" Lydia didn't voice the fact that technically, his own pokemon had knocked itself out. "Now go heal those runts of yours!" he commanded, patting her on the back so roughly she barely stopped herself from plummeting to the ground.

She and Cassandra left the gym at once.

* * *

Later that night, after Lydia was already changed into her mareep pajamas and her pokemon had long since been healed, her pokegear rang for the second time that day. Blinking in surprise, she picked it up off her nightstand and pushed the answer button.

"Lydia, forget what I said about coming back to Pallet. Please stay wherever you're at for now," her mother said hurriedly, before she even got the chance to say hello.

"Mom? Why-"

"Just listen to me, okay? I've got to go."

_Click._ The phone call was ended.

Lydia frowned, utterly confused and worried at this point. What if something had gone terribly wrong? She couldn't even talk to Cassandra about it, for the two of them had been stuck in separate rooms during their stay in Vermillion due to rooms with single-beds being the only ones available. It was way too late to go wake her now.

Overwhelmed, she drew her knees up to her chest and put her head in her hands.

"Char?" A small hand prodded her side gently. She sat up, looking into Smaug's concerned blue-green eyes. Out of all her pokemon, he was the only one who seemed to notice her distress. Scout was nosing obliviously through her travel bag, and a slightly stressed Arya was supervising the bug type. Scarlet snuck glances at her trainer from her perch on the dresser, but made no attempt to approach.

"I'm fine Smaug," Lydia said, forcing a smile. He didn't appear convinced.

"Freee!" Scout called delightedly, interrupting whatever reply Smaug was probably about to come up with. She clutched something in her hands and flapped her wings, momentarily struggling with her load before surging upwards and towards Lydia.

A book was dropped on her lap, and she felt the light weight of Scout settle onto her head. Despite her predicament, she couldn't help but be satisfied that she didn't feel the slightest flicker of fear at the contact. Upon looking up, she noticed that the butterfree was pointing eagerly at the book, which was titled "Julie of the Mightyena."

"You want to read this?" Lydia asked, a bit doubtfully. Scout nodded excitedly.

"Um… Okay," she said, opening the book. Smaug smiled at her, pressing up against her right side to make himself comfortable. Arya, noticing what was happening, somehow managed to scramble onto the bed and lay at Lydia's feet. The three of them watched her expectantly.

Lydia hesitated. "Scarlet?" The meowth stopped grooming. "Do… Do you want to come over here?" She patted the empty spot beside her. Scarlet's yellow gaze locked with Lydia's for a few seconds, and she was almost positive she had asked in vain. She regretfully looked back at the page.

Much to her surprise, the bed suck down to her left and something warm pressed against her leg. Lydia managed a shaky smile and couldn't help but run her fingers over Scarlet's freshly cleaned fur before she began to read. The underlying worry about her mother's call never left her, but her pokemon's presence relaxed her better than any medicine could.

It struck her at that moment just how much she needed them.

* * *

**AN:** Long time, no update? Seriously guys, I know you're irritated with me. I'm sorry. I was just looking through some of my earlier chapters the other day and I got so sad when I thought about how much work I put into this, then I just sort of left it hanging. It's been so long since I've written it, I'm even afraid my own characters aren't in character! Speaking of my characters, it's really amazing how much you can miss fictional people (And pokemon. I think I missed Smaug more than anybody, which is kind of weird).

Needless to say, I know this definitely isn't my best chapter (Though it is by far the longest) because of the length of time I've spent away from the story. I'm not really sure when I'll get to update again, but you guys are always free to message me in the future and ask me about my progress on a chapter.


	14. Chapter 14: Homebound

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Pokemon.

Thank you guys for all the reviews!

* * *

**Chapter 14: Homebound**

Lydia clipped the last pokeball to her belt, briefly enjoying the way the light in her rented room glinted off its surface. A star, a diamond, a heart, and a pink flower decorated the centers of them respectively. She ran her fingers over them once more out of habit before slinging her pack over her shoulder and walking out into the hallway.

Cassandra stood slumped against the wall to meet her, golden eyes still heavy with sleep. Her short, fiery red hair was thrown up into an even messier ponytail than usual, as if she hadn't had the proper amount of time to get ready. Lydia's own brown locks were in similar disarray, but luckily, her hat covered the worst of it.

"You could've told me about this last night, y'know," Cassandra griped, slurring her words slightly due to her tiredness.

"I'm sorry," Lydia replied, stifling a yawn. "I was going to leave today anyway, but when Mom called again it really scared me."

"Well, if we're gonna get to Pallet anytime soon, we'd better go," Cassandra said commandingly. She looked regretfully back at her room, where her empty bed remained.

Lydia nodded, and the two of them started towards the exit of the Center. The lobby was empty, save for Nurse Joy. She was busy readying herself for the day's patients, so as they left she simply spared them a customary "We hope to see you again" before returning to her work.

Fortunately for the girls, the rain from yesterday had long since cleared up. They sky was devoid of any clouds, yet it was still dim outside due to the time of day. They made their way through the city silently, meeting the occasional early-riser on the streets.

"Why in Arceus's name would _anyone_ get up this early?" Cassandra asked. Lydia didn't respond, though she silently agreed with her. Thinking of morning people suddenly reminded her of how both her mother and Amber had always been unusually cheery upon waking, which then triggered thoughts of whatever could be going on at home. She sighed, wishing she was already there.

"So you don't have any idea what's going on?" the redhead questioned several minutes later.

"No…" Lydia said, wishing for silence. She hated having a conversation after just waking up. Plus, she'd already told Cassandra first thing that morning that she didn't know what could've happened. She was just generally afraid that it was something really bad that her mother wanted to tell her in person, not over the phone. The second call, though, she really was clueless about.

She got her wish. The next hour was spent navigating Vermillion, with barely any conversation passing between the half-asleep pair. Soon, they arrived at their destination, which was just outside of town.

A sloppily painted sign stuck out of the ground next to the medium sized dirt formation they'd been searching for, labeling it as "Diglett's Cave". The entrance was dark and deep, though not quite as black as Mt. Moon's had been. However, it was nearly as foreboding to Lydia. She despised wandering around in the dark more than anything.

Reluctantly, she ended up climbing down the worn latter first to avoid the possibility of flashing her panties to Cassandra. On second thought, maybe she actually did hate something more than wandering around in the dark; s_kirts._

Much to her surprise, Lydia discovered that the inside of the tunnel was somewhat visible due to the occasional shaft of light that broke through from above. She supposed it was granted entrance in the areas the digglett rumored to inhabit the area used to surface. As she looked closer, she also noted the obvious signs that the cave was not, in fact, man made. The structure wasn't perfectly even, and though the path was relatively straight, it seemed to occasionally swerve slightly.

A dull_ thud_ echoed throughout to tunnel as Cassandra landed beside her. The girl wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Well. I can already tell what a lovely trip this is gonna be," she said.

"At least we can see better this time," Lydia said, attempting to be optimistic.

"Yeah, yeah."

They'd been walking approximately forty-five minutes when Cassandra suddenly tripped and fell flat on her face. "Oh my gosh, are you okay?" Lydia exclaimed, trying not to giggle at her friend's expression.

"Sh… Dangit! Something tripped me!" Cassandra yelled angrily, standing up and not bothering to dust the dirt off her clothes. Lydia followed her golden gaze back down the path, but the ground was completely flat. She was torn between being amused and surprised; stumbling over her own feet was more up her ally than Cassandra's.

Realizing how it looked, Cassandra was quick to add on to her previous statement. "No, really! You know I'm not a klutz!" Huffing, she blew her choppy red bangs out of her eyes.

"Yeah, okay…" Lydia responded, doubtfully.

Still apparently annoyed by her clumsiness, Cassandra crossed her arms and pushed past Lydia. Giggling silently to herself, Lydia trailed after her. The redhead's stubborn pride never ceased to amaze her.

Ten minutes hadn't passed before Cassandra fell forward out of nowhere. This time, she managed to steady herself on the rock wall before hitting the ground. "Alright, something's going on here!" Cassandra declared, spinning around and glancing suspiciously in every direction.

"Cassandra," Lydia started hesitantly, almost as if she was confronting a rabid wild nidoking. "Maybe you didn't get enough sleep last night. We did wake up pretty early."

"Do I look sleepy to you? I'm actually wide awake, thank you very much," Cassandra snapped.

Lydia flinched slightly, her eyes widening. She looked down at her sneakers and shuffled her feet. "Look, I'm_ sorry_," Cassandra said, forcing out the apology. "Let's just go."

Lydia nodded, forgiving her almost immediately. After traveling with Cassandra for a few weeks, she was beginning to grow accustomed to her moodiness. However, it had never really been directed at her until now.

They continued following the underground path carved by digglett without any further outbursts. Lydia thought she saw Cassandra stumble a couple times before quickly regaining her footing and glaring at the ground, but whether or not it was her imagination she wasn't sure.

Finally, they reached another old latter. Judging by the light pouring down from the hole it led through, it would take them directly outside. Lydia waited anxiously while Cassandra climbed up first (Again, to keep Lydia's undergarments well hidden). Soon enough, it was her turn, and she too was able to pull herself out of the misery that all dark areas seemed to cause her.

A welcome breeze rustled through her hair when she breeched the surface, and Lydia found herself momentarily shocked at the sudden brightness. They were in a large, open space filled with tall grass and the occasional wildflower. Not far off to her left, she spotted a cluster of trees so thick and tall she knew at once it had to be Viridian Forest. She thought she spotted Pewter on one end of them, though she couldn't make out Viridian city on the opposite side.

To her right and at much greater distance from them, there was a thinner line of trees. Ahead, numerous ledges were located, each of them lower than the previous one. She was somewhat reminded of standing on top of Mt. Moon, though on a much lesser scale.

Since they were hungry, worn out, and frankly without any idea which way to go next, they opted to stop for a lunch break. Lydia gladly plopped down on the soft grass, stretching her muscles. She was still adapting to all the constant traveling, but she had found that she could walk much farther than before without getting exhausted.

After getting comfortable, Lydia grabbed her four pokeballs off her belt in both her hands and released their inhabitants all at once. A flash of light briefly lit the area, announcing the pokemon's appearance. She dug three small bowls out of her pack, one for Scarlett, one for Scout, and one for Smaug and Arya to share (Scout always seemed to eat the entire bowl if allowed to share with someone, and Scarlett simply refused to).

Finally, after pouring some food into each of their bowls, Lydia pulled out her own meager lunch, which consisted of two granola bars and an orange. When away from the luxury of the Pokemon Center's cafeteria, she was always forced to eat similar things if she didn't want to starve.

"We should really find a friend who knows how to cook," Cassandra commented, eyeing their meal distastefully.

"I'll definitely have to get Mom to make us something when we get home," Lydia said, absentmindedly nibbling a granola bar. Oh, how she had taken warm, cooked food for granted in the past. Smaug looked up happily at the mention of her mom's cooking, likely comparing her scrumptious bacon to his pokemon kibble.

"Sounds like a plan," Cassandra said, watching her shellder scoop up Poke Chow with its incredibly long tongue. Ghastly hovered above the water type, equally interested in his feeding habits. Apparently, having a pokemon in their team that actually had to eat was still a new concept for them. The redhead wrinkled her nose and turned back to Lydia. "Speaking of going back to Pallet-"

"Char…" Smaug interrupted, poking Lydia's arm lightly. He sent Cassandra a quick apologetic glance before pointing off into the distance.

Lydia's gaze roamed in the direction his claw was aimed at and eventually landed on a very odd pair. An elderly man and an extremely strange looking, pink pokemon were walking leisurely several yards away from the edge of Viridian Forest. She wasn't quite sure if the two had noticed their group yet, but she didn't particularly think they meant them any harm.

Curious, she dug her pokedex out of her bag and aimed the green device in the direction of the old man's pokemon. It looked sort of familiar, but she couldn't place it. _"Mr. Mime, the Barrier Pokemon. It is adept at conning people, and is said to be able to create invisible walls out of thin air by miming."_

"Hmm. Looks like a pansy to me," Cassandra said, looking over Lydia's shoulder. "Anyway, when do you wanna start through the forest?"

Lydia bit back a groan. She had absolutely hated going through Viridian Forest the first time, and she doubted the second time would be much better. Actually, it would probably be worse, seeing as this time she wouldn't be able to catch a ride on Brock's onix. They'd probably be wandering around in the woods for days.

"Isn't there a way to go around it?" Lydia asked hopefully.

"Probably, but I don't know which way we'd go, and I _know_ you don't." As Cassandra was saying this, a colorful flash of light suddenly shown beside them and Smaug let out a growl of surprise (Or at least, as much of a growl as his somewhat high-pitched voice would allow).

"Well, hello there!" A voice said cheerily. Much to Lydia's astonishment, the old man who had previously been walking so far off in the distance was now standing among their party. She was oblivious to how in the world he'd gotten over to them so fast for a moment before it dawned on her that he must've had his mr. mime use teleport. "I couldn't help but notice that you were trainers, and I was wondering if either of you young ladies happens to have an abra you'd be willing to trade me for Mr. Mime here?"

"Um… N-no, we don't. Sorry…" Lydia said, exchanging a look with Cassandra.

"Well, that's too bad!" The old man was as happy as ever, though Mr. Mime looked less than pleased at the fact. Lydia couldn't really blame him. After all, his trainer did seem over eager to be rid of him as well.

"Mreowww," Scarlet mumbled quietly, her almond shaped eyes roaming over Mr. Mime. Arya nudged the cat pokemon, shaking her head disapprovingly. It took Lydia a moment to realize that Scarlet had been laughing.

An awkward silence hung in the air when the man kept standing above them with a smile on his face. Eventually, Cassandra cleared her throat loudly. "Look, we're trying to figure out which way we need to go next. So if you don't mind…" Lydia had a feeling that if it weren't for her being there, Cassandra wouldn't have even tried to feign politeness.

"Oh, no! I don't mind at 'all!" the man exclaimed. "Where are you going? I'd be happy to help!"

Cassandra's eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth, but Lydia quickly cut her off. "We're going to Pallet Town, s-sir." Her traveling companion shot her an incredulous look.

"Well, you're in luck, 'cause I just happen to be an expert about these parts." The man winked at them, and Cassandra mock-gagged. He didn't appear to notice. "The quickest way is to just head straight South from here, then take a right when you reach the edge of the trees. You could also go through Viridian Forest, but-"

"We'll go south, but first we need to finish eating. You can go now," Cassandra said abruptly.

The elder huffed, looking offended. "Fine. Mr. Mime, teleport us home so we can get away from this hooligan."

"Mime," the psychic type said dryly. He clapped his gloved hands together and the pair disappeared in a whirl of light.

"Thank you," Lydia said as they left, but she doubted they heard her. She turned to Cassandra, frowning slightly. "You didn't have to be so mean. He was just trying to be nice."

Cassandra shoved the last bit of her granola bar into her mouth and stood up. She also returned both of her pokemon before finally responding. "Lydia, Lydia, Lydia. You'll just never learn. He had some serious creeper potential, if you ask me." She laughed, and Lydia was unsure if she was joking or not. "Let's go."

Reluctantly, Lydia arose from her comfortable grassy cushion and copied Cassandra in returning all of her pokemon. The two of them swiftly put everything back into their bags before setting out in the downhill direction.

As always, Lydia dreaded the long walk ahead of her. From what she could see, there appeared to be several high ledges along the way, and the climbing would definitely be tedious. However, she was too grateful that they didn't have to go through Viridian Forest to dwell on the negatives.

Unfortunately, when they'd made it down the first of many cliffs, Lydia realized that they'd never be able to come this way when traveling in the opposite direction. When (Or if) they decided to resume traveling, they wouldn't be able to avoid the forest unless they decided to brave the ocean on the other side of Pallet. Yet again, she found herself craving a water type.

Too soon for Lydia's liking, it became too dark outside for them to safely climb down anymore ledges. Cassandra was willing to try to go down at least one more time, but Lydia refused due to the possibility that the limited light caused one of them to lose their footing and fall.

The girls pulled out their blankets and pillows and lay down for the night. As had become customary during any nights spent outside, Cassandra released Ghastly to keep watch over them as they slept (More to ease Lydia's mind than anything else). Lydia also let Smaug out, as she had become rather accustomed to sleeping with him nearby. Plus, she had the sneaking suspicion that he also woke up from time to time to guard his trainer from whatever strange creatures came out at night.

Despite this, the charmander huddled up next to her as if he were also going to sleep. He was careful to keep his tail far away from her easily flammable clothing and blankets. Lydia wrapped an arm around his small form and closed her eyes, drifting off into dreamland.

* * *

It was late afternoon when Lydia first caught site of her hometown the next day.

"Cassandra, Smaug, we're here!" she said excitedly, breaking the silence. Smaug stirred on her shoulder, appearing anxious. Pallet had been his lifelong home too, after all.

"Finally!" Cassandra said, picking up the pace. They moved very quickly after that point, Lydia guiding them easily though the now familiar dirt paths of her childhood.

Before long, they had reached the head of the small town's main street. Thrilled as she was to be home, Lydia couldn't help but allow a frown to grace her face at the sight that lay before her.

It was all wrong.

None of the townsfolk's pokemon were wandering the streets. The women weren't tending their prized gardens, despite the fact that it was a beautiful day. Little Joshua and Katie weren't climbing trees in their yard, like they always seemed to be.

"I finally figured out where you got your anti-socialness from," Cassandra said, looking around the town critically. "These people are about as welcoming as a crazed mankey."

"No, something's wrong," Lydia said in a small voice.

"Charmander, char," Smaug agreed, patting her shoulder consolingly. He too appeared concerned.

Lydia looked around, thoroughly searching for the reason behind all of this. Suddenly, her light brown eyes landed upon the two figures standing on the edge of town, facing the sea.

* * *

**AN: **Guess away, people ;)

On with the AN. I've been wondering lately; is there anything particular that you, as a reader, would like to see in this story? I mean, my plot is pretty much decided, so nothing major can be altered. But I'm talking about the little things, like certain people you'd like to see appear (Another in game trainer like Calvin, perhaps?), certain pokemon you would like to see used (Not for Lydia, her team has been decided for a long while now. Maybe Cassandra or other random trainers, though), or other things.

Oh! And by the way, if you're interested in Digimon, I published an OC story a couple months ago. It definitely has it's cliche moments, not going to lie, but I think it's coming along nicely so far.

**Shout Out:** "Secondhand Hero", by Windflicker. It's a HG/SS fic, but it's unique, well-written and worth the read so far.

'Hopefully', I'll be back to my Tuesday updates next week!


	15. Chapter 15: Traces of Blood

**Disclaimer:** Pokemon doesn't belong to me.

This chapter is a bit… gloomier that usual, so fair warning.

* * *

**Chapter 15: Traces of Blood**

Lydia let out a sharp intake of breath, her heart rate increasing slightly. Only the backs of the mysterious figures were visible to her, but she was absolutely positive they weren't Pallet residents out for a stroll.

The one on the left was tall and lean with a full head of spikey maroon hair. A long piece a black cloth rippled down his back; a_ cape_? He appeared to be bending down over the water, though she couldn't pick out exactly what he was examining.

The man's companion was far more intimidating. Enormously tall, with well-defined muscles that stood out from what was probably years of battling, the dragon-like pokemon suddenly jerked around to face them. The two yellow antennae on its head wiggled sharply and it let out a rumbling sound from the back of its throat.

The pokemon's trainer was upright at once. His mouth was moving, but Lydia was too paralyzed with fear to even try to read his lips. Even Cassandra, who never seemed to be afraid, was looking paler than normal.

Smaug let out a weak warning growl as he twisted on her shoulder. Though he was trembling slightly, Lydia knew without a doubt that he would be willing to protect her until his last breath. Fearfully, she reached up and pulled him downwards so that she could clutch him tightly against her chest. The other pokemon- a dragonite, she now realized - could easily swallow him whole if it wanted to.

One of Dragonite's massive legs move forward, but the trainer held up a hand, stopping him. Instead, the man tossed his cape neatly over his back and walked towards them himself. His stride was strong and proud, showing just how confident in his abilities he was. Lydia subconsciously took a step backwards.

Apparently noticing this, the strange man halted in his tracks. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," he assured. She wanted to believe him, but life on the road had made her cautious around powerful people who appeared in places where there was quite obviously something wrong.

Lydia stared back at him silently, and suddenly, his face appeared strangely familiar. Childhood memories of crowding around the TV with Red and Gary (With Amber sulking in the back, unhappy about missing the latest episode of "My Little Ponyta") on Saturday afternoons flooded her brain. The boys had _always _watched battles on Saturdays. _Always_. Even the cape and dragonite sent a wave of nostalgia over her.

Lance, the famous dragon trainer, was standing before her.

Her mouth dropped open and hung there uselessly. She seemed to have forgotten how to speak. Lance's mouth quirked. He obviously recognized the signs of somebody realizing who he was.

Cassandra stared back and forth between the two of them, appearing confused. Lydia gestured wordlessly at the dragon tamer. The other girl looked at him again, harder this time, before her eyes suddenly widened.

"You're Lance!" Cassandra blurted, uselessly.

"Yes." If he was amused, he didn't show it. "I apologize if Dragonite scared you. He wasn't sure if you were involved with the ones who did this."

"What happened?" Lydia cried. She momentarily forgot to be star struck in the wake of whatever had befallen her beloved hometown.

Lance's lips sloped downwards in a frown, and he held up something Lydia hadn't realized he'd had in the first place. She was startled to see that it was actually a part of what had once been a shiny, almost metallic looking net. "Someone's poaching got a little closer to shore than they probably anticipated. Professor Oak alerted the league at once, but whoever it was fled when they found out I was on my way."

Lydia felt her heart go out to whatever innocent pokemon had been the victims of humanity's cruelty. She truly, truly hoped they didn't manage to catch any of them.

"Bastards," Cassandra spat. Somewhat surprisingly, Lance didn't show the slightest hint of displeasure at seeing the fourteen year old use such language. Lydia supposed it was because he agreed with her.

"W-was anyone hurt?" Lydia asked.

"No Pallet residents have been reported injured, thankfully. They've all been hiding in their homes," Lance said, and Lydia felt a breath of relief leave her. "Unfortunately, the pod of seel and dewgong the poachers decided to go after weren't so lucky. Almost all of them were wiped out."

Lydia's eyes widened, and her hand went up to cover her open mouth. Wiped out? She had never assumed that by poaching he meant anything other than cruelly catching some of them! She couldn't comprehend how someone could be so heartless.

"The horns of seel and dewgong, as well as their fur, can be very valuable," Lance said, understanding her reaction.

"Lydia! What in Arceus's name are you doing here?" a voice called from behind. Professor Oak was approaching them hurriedly, a first aide kit in hand. He didn't give her time to respond, instead turning to Lance. "Where are they?"

Lance pointed towards the spot near the beach, where he had been standing when they arrived. "Right over there. It doesn't look good." Professor Oak made to run over in that direction, but the dragon trainer reached out and clutched the arm of his lab coat. "Wait. I need to know if you have any idea who did this so I can report back to the league. I won't be able to stay any longer."

Professor Oak looked displeased about being held up, but he answered nonetheless. "I can't say for sure, but it had to have been an established group of criminals to pull off an operation this large. Who do _you_ think it was?" The glint in both men's eyes revealed that the question was indeed rhetorical.

"Very well. I wish I could help out more, but I'm a busy man." Lance approached Dragonite, who had been hanging back slightly the entire time to avoid frightening Cassandra or Lydia further. He hoisted himself up onto the beast's back and swung one of his legs over to the other side. "Good luck!" he said, waving in farewell.

Dragonite crouched down, spreading his large wings, and sprung up into the sky. The rush of wind from the take off was so rough Lydia was forced to hold her hat onto her head with one hand for a few seconds. Smaug even had to shield the flame on his tail from the gust, though Lydia doubted it would really cause it to go out.

She admired the majestic sight of them flying away, but Professor Oak yanked her out of her reverie. "Lydia, you probably don't need to see this, but I may need you and your friend's help," he said urgently, already half running towards the beach.

Confused, she followed. Cassandra trailed behind her, a bit hesitant to take orders from someone who was just a random old man to her.

The beach had always been a place Lydia adored visiting, but she almost thought she was going to be sick at what she saw. The gentle, lapping water was tinted blood red in certain areas, indicating the tragedy that had recently taken place there. Even a few stray clumps of white fur splotched red were visible on the edges of the sand. She fought back the bile rising in her throat and stared determinedly at the back of Professor Oak's stark white lab coat.

Unfortunately, her attempts didn't distract her eyes from eventually finding the motionless white and red lump that he was heading towards. Lydia immediately felt tears cloud her vision at the sight of what she knew had once been a healthy dewgong. It twitched when Professor Oak kneeled down next to it, revealing that it was actually alive.

The pokemon moaned, looking up at the humans with frightened eyes. Its tail moved to curl around something, causing Lydia to notice the two fuzzy bundles cuddled up next to it. The baby seel cried out, scooting closer to their mother despite the blood oozing form her wounds.

"Char, mander, char," Smaug said in a comforting voice, probably letting them know that these humans, at least, meant them no harm. He crawled out of Lydia's arms so he could better converse with them, but they didn't appear to notice.

Professor Oak, fortunately, knew what he was doing. He ran a hand down the mother's neck, carefully avoiding her many injuries and whispering soothing words to her. "Alright, Lydia. I need you to pull the pups away so I can help her," he said.

Lydia reached out, eyeing the mother warily. The pokemon was injured, but she very well knew that a mother would go to any lengths to protect her offspring if she thought they were in danger. Professor Oak nodded at her encouragingly.

Gently, Lydia reached the rest of the way down and picked up the closest baby seel. It was smaller and appeared more fragile than any of her other pokemon, but to her relief, it was completely uninjured aside from the scratch on its muzzle. After setting it down in the sand beside her, she reached for the bigger of the two pups. This time, the results weren't as good. The seel immediately flinched the moment her careful fingers made contact with its stomach, and she let go at once.

She was shocked to see blood smeared across her palm. Professor Oak apparently shared her concern, for he expertly maneuvered the young pokemon so that he had a good view of its underside. A long, deep gash ran from its front flipper to the beginning of its tail, and Lydia allowed a few more tears to fall.

Smaug's clawed hand patted her arm sympathetically, and she met his gaze. His teal eyes weren't wet like hers were, but they held a deep sadness in them. Unable to restrain herself, she quickly hugged him.

"Lydia, I could really use someone to calm the uninjured baby seel down. Do you think you could take her back to your house for me and watch her?" Professor Oak asked gently. Lydia knew he was mainly asking to give her the opportunity to get away from the scene, and she couldn't have been more grateful.

She quickly nodded, and easily scooped up the baby seel in her arms again. The pokemon's heartbeat was frantic; she really _could _benefit from leaving the area.

Professor Oak watched her as she walked back up the beach, towards where Cassandra was standing awkwardly. The redheaded girl looked much calmer than her, but she was quieter than usual, as if she didn't know what to say. "Ahh, Lydia's traveling companion. Cassandra is it? Would you mind giving me a hand?" the man asked.

Lydia's mind was too muddled at the moment for her to bother listening to Cassandra's reply. She trudged back up the hill and towards Pallet, the seel clutched securely in her arms. Smaug was right at her heels, almost like he was afraid that if he left her side for too long, she'd break down once and for all.

Thankfully, she felt much more at ease once she reached the town. Seel apparently was too, for she relaxed slightly in Lydia's grip once they were away from the bloody scene that was the beach. Due to a combination of the village's small size and Lydia's knowledge of it, they reached the doorstep of her house not five minutes later.

At the sight of her home, Lydia allowed herself to crack a smile. She had missed it _so_ much. Anxiously, she stepped forward and knocked loudly on the door. Silence met her.

"Mom? It's okay, it's just me, Lydia!" she said, trying again.

She still wasn't granted entrance, but the blinds on the window a few feet away from it moved briefly. Several long seconds passed, and Lydia was almost sure her own mother was going to refuse to let her in the house. Just as she was giving up, the knob jingled and the door swung open.

"Lydia!" her mother exclaimed, lunging at her with an embrace. Lydia would've returned it just as fiercely if not for the scared creature in her arms.

"Careful, Mom!" she said, stepping back and indicating the seel. Instead of a full out hug, Lydia settled for briefly freeing her left hand and wrapping it around her mother. "I've missed you so much."

"Oh, honey, I've missed you too! The house has been so empty without you. Although, I did tell you to stay away…" Anna chastised. She stepped back slightly, holding Lydia at arms length and eyeing her from head to toe. "Are you alright? Those poachers haven't hurt you, have they? No random pokemon attacks?"

"I'm fine," Lydia promised, stepping into the house. She chose not to respond to her mother's rebuke, hoping that she would forget it in her happiness at having her daughter back home. Anna shut the door tightly behind them and locked it. "But I think it's okay for everyone to come out now. The poachers are gone…"

"That's good. I haven't been to work in two days," Anna said. She continued to ramble about everyday things that had been tampered with due to the poachers' activity, but Lydia zoned out. Instead, she focused on the seel in her arms.

The little pokemon was staring around the house with wide, liquid black eyes. Lydia suddenly remembered the cut on her snout. "Hey, Mom? I'll be in the living room in just a second; I've got to do something really quick."

After motioning for Smaug to just go ahead with her mother, Lydia turned in the opposite direction and headed to the bathroom. She entered the small room, and facing the mirror, sat the seel down on the counter. Much to Lydia's dismay, she didn't show the slightest interest in her likeness in the glass, or even the faucet when she turned it on to wash her hands.

Concerned, she quickly cleaned the cut and put a small band-aide over it. She picked her back up and began making her way to the living room, deciding to simply give the pokemon some time for the moment. After all, it was understandable for Seel to be slightly traumatized because of the blood bath she had probably witnessed.

When Lydia entered the living room, all thoughts of the water type's condition evaporated. Her parents and Smaug weren't the only ones present, which was something she hadn't expected. Two other women occupied the couch with her mother, while her father lounged in the recliner. She immediately recognized both Red's mother and Mrs. Oak, Amber's mother.

The four adults greeted her enthusiastically, though Mrs. Oak was noticeably less cheery than usual. After a round of hugs and one kiss on the forehead, a blushing Lydia plopped down on the loveseat. Seel curled up in her lap, silently placing her face into Lydia's shirt. Smaug also crawled up next to her, very obviously glad to be in someone's company that he actually knew well.

"We were visiting your mother when we first heard the commotion outside," Red's mother, Susan, explained. She was the youngest out of any of the women by several years, though she was also the only widowed one. Red's father was a mysterious figure who Lydia couldn't remember, though from time to time she heard something about him from another Pallet resident. Apparently, he had been a very powerful trainer, and he and Susan had gotten married at a young age. "We were afraid to leave, so we've been driving your parents insane for the past three days."

Anna scoffed. "You know you're always welcome here," her eyes softened when they fell on Mrs. Oak. "Especially in times like these."

Suddenly, something dawned on Lydia.

A very important person was absent. For the first time, she noticed the dark circles under Mrs. Oak's eyes, and how it looked like she hadn't bothered to fix her hair up whatsoever. Lydia frowned, knowing that the woman was always particular about her hair.

Just like her daughter.

"W-where…. Where's Amber?" Lydia asked nervously.

Silence fell upon the room. Susan, Lydia's father, and Anna all exchanged meaningful glances. Lydia nervously pushed her bangs behind her ear. She was right, something was wrong. Promptly, Mrs. Oak burst into tears and put her head in her hands.

"Honey…" Anna began, hesitantly. "Amber's gone."

"Gone?" Lydia repeated, utterly confused.

"We don't know where. She just left," her mother said sympathetically. "This is what I called you about the other day, but I didn't know how to explain it over the phone."

Mrs. Oak looked up, her face pink and streaked with tears. She held a crumpled pieced of paper out towards Lydia. "_This!_ This is all she left me!" she half sobbed, half shrieked.

Still in shock, Lydia numbly took the paper from her. In familiar, girly handwriting, it read,

_Mom, _

_I'm sorry to have to tell you like this, but I'm leaving. I just can't handle it anymore. No one thinks I can do anything, but I can. I really can. _

_So I'm going to prove it to you by going on a pokemon journey. I'm going to prove that I can be just as good at this as Gary. I know I said I didn't want to, but Grandpa just had to ruin everything. I wasn't supposed to be the only one left. _

_Love,_

_Amber. _

* * *

**AN:** Not what anybody was expecting, I bet (At least the poaching part). Anyway, this was a pretty depressing chapter overall. Actually, it'll probably be one of the most negative ones I have in ATG.

Oh, and I have a new poll on my profile. Please go vote. It's relatively important to the sequel of this, so you'd probably want to. One more thing: check out SpanishInquisition's new story, "A Rekindled Flame". He could really use some more reviews :)

**Random Question:** What's the story behind your penname? It's kinda funny with mine, actually. I couldn't think of anything at first, so I resorted to looking up flower names. Alphinia was actually supposed to be alpinia, but I accidentally misspelled it! By the time I realized my mistake, I was already used to Alphinia. Now, I couldn't picture it as anything else though xD


	16. Chapter 16: Troubling News

**Disclaimer: I do not own pokemon. What a shame… **

Thanks, reviewers!

* * *

**Chapter 16: Troubling News**

Amber's note knocked Lydia's already depressed mood down quite a few pegs.

The guilt was eating away at her more than ever. She had known leaving Amber alone in Pallet would hurt her feelings. She had known all along, and yet, she'd left anyway. Granted, her best friend had never shown the slightest sign of wanting to go on her own journey. If Lydia had known that she too wanted to come along, she would have loved to have Amber travel with her.

"Well, I s-saw Gary and he's doing great," Lydia mumbled in an attempt to comfort Mrs. Oak several minutes later. It was a veiled lie; she hadn't seen Gary since Viridian City. She blushed, probably allowing her mother to detect that she wasn't telling the whole truth. "Red, too."

Susan let out a sigh of relief, and Mrs. Oak said, "Thank you, Lydia. He never bothers to call home and let his poor mother know if he's alright."

"They're both great trainers," Lydia said, honestly this time. She stared down at the seel in her lap, avoiding Smaug's prodding gaze. He was obviously concerned that she was still comparing herself to them, but she had already begun accepting that all three of them had different strengths.

"What about you, Lydia?" Anna asked, looking at her knowingly. The other women and her father nodded, Mrs. Oak in particular looking eager for a subject change. "How are you doing?"

"W-well… Alright, I-I guess…"

"Mander," Smaug said shyly. He smiled up at her in his strange, reptilian way.

"Your pokemon seem to like you," Susan noted, eyeing Smaug and Seel.

Lydia smiled, but quickly informed them that Seel wasn't hers, she was just watching her for Professor Oak. Feeling encourage, she went on to tell them about how she had miraculously earned two badges. She also described each of her pokemon and how much she enjoyed being with them.

The story of her adventures was interrupted when her pokegear began going off.

Blinking, she dug it out of her bag and clicked the answer button. "Hello?"

"Hi, Lydia." It was Cassandra's voice, and she sounded strangely subdued. Lydia felt her breathing pick up, half-dreading whatever news the other girl was about to give her. "We're back at the lab. Professor Coke-Oak, sorry- wants you to come on over."

"Okay, I'll be there soon," she replied uncertainly.

"They didn't make it," Cassandra said suddenly. "The dewgong and her baby. The wounds were too deep. He couldn't save them."

Lydia was silent. She glanced down at the bundle of white fur buried into her shirt, not knowing what to say. "Oh, no…" she whispered, forcing herself to stay composed. She squeezed the seel a bit, causing her to look up at her in alarm. Apologetically, she stroked her back, and she hesitantly returned to her former position.

"I know," Cassandra said, pity detectable in her voice. Whether it was for her or the dewgong, Lydia wasn't sure. "You're coming then?"

"Yes, I'll leave now," Lydia said. "Bye."

Stuffing her pokegear back into her bag and returning Smaug for the sake of speed, she stood up, Seel in hand. "Professor Oak needs me. I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?"

"Alright, sweetie," Anna said, looking disappointed that she was leaving so soon.

She started down the hall, but Mrs. Oak's call stopped her. "Wait, Lydia! I probably won't be here when you get back, but if you find anything out about my daughter, you will let me know, won't you?"

Lydia nodded. Of course she would, she didn't know why the woman even felt she had to ask. With her goodbyes officially taken care of, she exited the house.

Outside, the town was still mainly empty. Only few people had stepped cautiously out of their homes, probably encouraged by the sight of Lance flying away. The rare residents she spotted on her way to the lab were busy watching for any sign of danger, but some of them still shouted out surprised greetings to her.

Professor Oak's laboratory was every bit as grand as she remembered, though something about it seemed a little dimmer in the light of recent events. Bracing herself, she stepped forward and through the sliding glass doors.

Like the last time she had been summoned to the lab, Professor Oak was nowhere to be found in the main room. Several aides bustled about, though not a one of them looked up from his or her work to pay her any mind. Lydia already knew the way to the professor's office (Where she knew he was probably waiting), so she chose to go back there herself instead of interrupting one of the scientists.

One long hallway later, she found herself standing before his partially open door. Unsure if she should announce her presence before barging in, she tapped lightly on the wood before pushing it aside. "Hi, professor," she said awkwardly. "You said you needed me?"

Professor Oak looked up from his conversation with Cassandra, who was seated across from him. He appeared even more harassed and worn out than he had a few minutes ago. "Ahh, hello, Lydia. I didn't get the chance to chat earlier, but it's nice to see you again, despite the circumstances. Please, sit down."

Lydia readily complied, making herself comfortable in a chair next to Cassandra. The redhead nodded a greeting at her, seemingly herself again. Despite this, she couldn't help but notice how the other girl avoided directly looking at Seel. "Cassandra tells me you've earned two badges. Impressive, considering I thought you had no interest in gyms."

"Oh, I don't," Lydia blurted. When the old man looked confused, she blushed and continued. "I-I mean, thank you. And _I_ don't like battling, Smaug wanted too."

He looked slightly surprised for a moment, and then understanding dawned on his face. "Lydia, do you realize why I chose to give the charmander to you?"

"Um… N-no, why?" she asked, wrinkling her brow.

"That's easy," Cassandra said, wearing an odd expression. "Smaug's all shy and quiet, just like our dear Lydia here."

"Well, partially, I suppose. But my real reasoning is the fact that you have the best patience suited to raise him, the slowest growing of all three. Squirtle, on the other hand, was the only one patient enough to deal with my grandson." Professor Oak chuckled lightly. "Needless to say, I think I made excellent choices. You two seem to have taken quite the liking to each other."

Lydia nodded, smiling. She couldn't imagine having any starter by her side other than Smaug. He was, in many ways, one of the best friends she had ever had.

"Your other pokemon are doing well, I assume?"

"Yeah, I guess…" she said, realizing that they were getting dangerously close to exactly how many she had caught. The number was still pitifully low, but she had long since decided that she didn't want to catch more pokemon than she could actually devote her time to. It wouldn't be fair.

Sincerely wanting to make up for that letdown, she shifted Seel into one arm and turned to dig around in her pack. Several seconds later, she pulled out her notebook with the smiling charmander on the cover. Anxiously, she held it out towards him. "H-here. These are for you, since I haven't really been helping with the pokedex like I promised…"

Curiously, Professor Oak took the item from her. Lydia watched nervously as he flipped through the pages. She really hoped the notes she had taken from her observations weren't too pathetic. Cassandra glanced at her at one point, and upon seeing her nervousness, gave a very obvious roll over her eyes.

After skimming through much of her work (Which didn't yet take up even half the book), he looked up. "These are very interesting Lydia, thank you." Professor Oak smiled thoughtfully and handed the notebook back to her. "You know, you'd make a pretty good research assistant. Maybe one day you could even be a pokemon researcher like myself."

A pokemon professor?

Lydia had never even considered the idea. However, the more she thought about it, the more she liked it. She adored pokemon, and she loved learning about them, yet she didn't like battling. What occupation would suit her more than that of a simple researcher?

Professor Oak cleared his throat suddenly, all traces of merriment gone from his features. Lydia could tell he was finally getting to the real matter at hand. "You've done a great job watching that seel for me Lydia, but with her mother out of the picture, we now have the issue of finding out what exactly to do with her."

The statement concerning her mother didn't go unnoticed by Seel. She rose up off Lydia's lap, whimpering in distress. In the confusion, her paws and horn became wet with ice. Sensing a possible catastrophe, Lydia quickly hugged Seel to her chest and murmured somewhat uncertainly, "Shhh, it's okay. You have to be strong now, for your family."

Seel's whimpers ceased and she stopped accidentally icing all over the place, but she was still clearly upset. "She seems to trust you," Professor Oak said. "I think you should keep her."

"Yeah, you've wanted a water type for weeks," Cassandra said, eyeing the pair.

"Well, I'd… I'd love too," Lydia said, smiling. She looked down at the pokemon, and it gazed back up at her with teary eyes. "Is that okay with you?"

Seel considered her for a moment. Finally, she nodded her white head and nuzzled back into Lydia's shirt. Despite the sad circumstance under which she had gotten her, Lydia was thrilled to have a new pokemon. No, a new _friend._

"Mr. Oak," Cassandra said, interrupting Lydia's brief moment of joy. She vaguely realized that her friend must really respect Professor Oak to actually address him as 'Mr. Oak'. "You know who did this, don't you?"

Professor Oak's face darkened. "I can't be positive."

"But you have a good idea," Cassandra challenged.

"Yes, I do," he admitted. "There are two major possibilities. One, the Rockets are up to their usual tricks, or two, that new group that calls themselves the Elites are behind this."

"I don't think it was the Rockets for a couple reasons. They're never shy about proclaiming their presence, and as far as I know, no one in Pallet saw anything with their symbol on it. If it was them, surely the town would've been swarming with their grunts."

"My other reasoning is the recent activity of the Elites. They're obviously after money, and they aren't afraid to resort to violent methods to get it. If I'm right, and I believe I am, then the Elites are more than just a petty criminal group out for some spare cash. They're up to something, and they need the funds for it." Professor Oak sat back in his chair and clasped his hands together with a sigh. "Of course, I could be completely wrong, and it could've been a band of pirates who were really the poachers."

Lydia and even Cassandra were silenced by his speech. They slumped in their seats, digesting the newfound information. What he said definitely made sense, but they didn't have enough evidence to prove anything. Lydia frowned, finding all of this to be very troubling.

Very troubling indeed.

* * *

Lydia settled down under the warm, familiar sheets of her bed later that night. They were oh so much more cozy than the ones at the pokemon center, and there was no comparison whatsoever to sleeping outside.

Cassandra was currently getting comfortable in the guestroom next to hers, and the two of them had just consumed a healthy supper prepared by Anna. All in all, Lydia was extremely glad to be back home. Despite this, her bag was packed full of fresh supplies (And a couple extra outfits), ready for her to leave the next day. After backtracking so much in her journey, she really couldn't afford a prolonged stay in Pallet Town, no matter how much she wanted it.

Seel was currently waddling around the bed, sniffing at the eevee comforter. Lydia was glad to see her expressing curiosity, a normal thing for young pokemon, for a change. "You need a name," she said.

Seel looked up at her, nose twitching. "Si?"

"Hmmm…" Seel was a young pokemon, much like all the other ones she had captured thus far. However, she definitely didn't want to give her the name of a child. No, she had endured far too much tragedy. Lydia wanted something timeless, feminine, and classic for a change. "Juliet. How about Juliet?"

"Seel," the water type said, nodding lightly.

Lydia smiled. "Alright, Juliet. How'd you like to meet the rest of our team now?"

Juliet appeared reluctant, but she didn't outright say no. Her not wanting to associate with others at the moment didn't really surprise Lydia, so she decided to start slow. She retrieved Smaug's pokeball off her nightstand, thinking he'd be the easiest, when she suddenly caught sight of the star on it. "Oh! You need a sticker."

She crawled onto her knees and fished the crumpled sheet of stickers out of her bag. Some of them were hanging halfway off and a corner of the page was ripped, but it would do. When she held it out to Juliet, the seel appeared confused, so she quickly explained the purpose of it to her.

"Si, Ele." Juliet's flipper made awkward contact with a pretty snowflake, and Lydia peeled it off and stuck it onto her pokeball.

"Okay, now you can meet Smaug," she said, pressing the center button on the pokeball gripped in her hand.

Smaug appeared in a flash of red light, his tail flame immediately illuminating the dim room. "Char…" he said in greeting, facing Juliet shyly. The seel's face wasn't the friendliest, but since he knew the situation already, he didn't appear too discouraged.

Relatively satisfied with the results, Lydia plucked both Arya and Scout's pokeballs up next. She released them simultaneously. The pokemon voiced their usual greetings to her before catching sight of Juliet. "Guys, this is Juliet. She's on our team now," she said.

"Juliet, this is Arya, and this is Scout." She pointed at the nidoran and butterfree respectively.

Arya offered Juliet a friendly lick on the forehead (To which she briefly froze up at) and Scout let out a joyful "freee". The three pokemon inspected each other for a few moments before giving Lydia nods of approval, though Scout seemed a bit put out by Juliet's unenthused reception of her.

Running her hands through her hair, Lydia picked up Scarlet's pokeball. She had saved her for last for a reason. Bracing herself, she pressed the released button and crossed her fingers that the feline was in a good mood.

"Mreoww," Scarlet said, grandly announcing her presence. She stretched out her tail, as if displaying her well-kept coat to the others in the room.

Finally, she acknowledged Juliet's presence. Her cat-like eyes narrowed, her pupils traveling down slowly as she looked the seel up and down thoroughly.

"Juliet, Scarlet. Scarlet, Juliet," Lydia said nervously.

Scarlet let out a displeased noise at being addressed second, but made no further comment as she went back to examining Juliet. "Meowth. Meow," Scarlet said simply after a few minutes, inclining her head for a split second. Then, she proceeded to turn up her nose and curl up on her customary spot on the bed.

"Charmander, char," Smaug said nonchalantly, glancing at Scarlet with mischievous eyes. Apparently, it was a joke at her expense, for the meowth tensed and let out an indigent hiss, while Scout and Arya burst into their own forms of laughter. Juliet's shoulders slumped with relief and even she barked a tiny sound of amusement.

Lydia had no idea what was so funny, but she found herself smiling along with them.

* * *

**AN:** Whew… Let me tell you guys, you're lucky I was able to get this one out in time xD I've been so busy with finals this past week. But I love you all to death, so I managed to scrape together enough time to get this done. I know nothing too exciting really happened here, but it was important nonetheless.

**Oh, and I have another big thing to mention to you guys.** I want to do something special for my 100th reviewer, but the only thing I could think of was an OC (Wait, let me add that TheSpanishInquisition helped me think of this! lol). Frankly, I don't actually like OC submission, and I'd really prefer doing something else. Thoughts or other ideas will be much appreciated.

Since this will be the last time I update before the 25th, I hope you guys all have a Merry Christmas! If you don't celebrate it, then Happy Holidays!


	17. Chapter 17: Pikachu Hunt

**Disclaimer:** I don't own pokemon.

Thanks for the reviews, guys! I have a special surprise for you this chapter

* * *

**Chapter 17: Pikachu Hunt**

Amber Oak's so called 'journey' was not going exactly as she had planned. Actually, it was going downright terribly.

For one, she ached.

All. Over. Her. Body.

Her bag was too heavy. She had packed everything she deemed essential, but on the second day of traveling, she'd been forced to dump some of her possessions (Such as spare outfits and pots for whatever cooking she could accomplish on her own) out and leave them behind. Needless to say, that had been a complete tragedy.

She hadn't showered in two days. _Two days_. The sweat absolutely disgusted her, and it ruined her makeup. In fact, she hadn't even bothered to put any on after entering the hellhole that was Viridian forest.

To top everything else off, she was currently in the deepest part of said forest without a pokemon to protect her.

Amber often found herself wondering why in the world she left home in the first place, because it wasn't worth it. Then, she'd remember Gary, Red, and Lydia and her dwindling determination would return tenfold. She wouldn't return to Pallet without anything to say for herself, no matter what she had to endure.

But why was she here, in the part of the forest that was nearly untouched by travelers, when she could take the normal trail and be out of the woods in another day or two?

There was only one pokemon she wanted, and this was the best place to find it. At first, Amber had no idea where it would live. She knew that each of the other Pallet Town kids would have had their own method of dealing with the situation. Gary would probably already know exactly where to look. Lydia, of course, would go to books for the answer. She doubted Red would really even be picky in the species of pokemon he selected in the first place. Surely, he could raise anything.

Amber wasn't like the others.

No, instead of beating around the bush, Amber had done something that her friends would never have done. She had marched right up to Nurse Joy the moment she had arrived in Viridian City and asked her where the closest place she could catch a pikachu was.

Apparently, the only place pikachu commonly resided in Kanto was the nearby Viridian Forest. However, she would have went all the way to Celadon City if need be. She _would_ catch a pikachu for her first pokemon if it was the last thing she did.

Amber had yet to see even the tiniest clue that revealed this place was really home to pikachu. Actually, she had only seen two caterpie and a weedle up close so far; every other pokemon she encountered fled before she could get close enough to identify it. Annoyed at her rotten luck, she forced herself through a particularly thick cluster of underbrush, scraping her exposed legs in the process.

"Ouch!" she whined aloud to herself, though her spirits brightened slightly when the sound of human voices floated to her ears.

Excited, she started in the direction she thought they were coming from. Maybe these people could help her!

After several minutes, she broke through the last bit of weeds and arrived in a small clearing. A group of boys, the oldest being ten at the most, stood clustered together in the center. Each of them clutched a long bug catching net in his hand, and many donned overlarge straw hats.

"No, I swear! That caterpie was ginormous. It had to be at least this big, and I'm telling you, I almost had it!" one of the boys cried, holding up his hands and stretching them as far apart as they would go.

"You're fibbing, Joey!" one of the younger kids cried, and then his eyes widened to the size of quarters when he suddenly caught sight of Amber. "Hey look! There's a _girl_!" His voice was slightly raspy, as if he meant it to come out as a whisper, but he might as well have been shouting to her.

Another boy suddenly smirked and hit Joey across the chest. "Hey, since you're so cool, why don't you go talk to her?" The other boys gasped dramatically, and then proceeded to hold up their hands and snigger behind them.

"No!" The boys' laughter increased. Joey's face turned beat red, but then he got a determined expression. "Fine, I'll do it!" Hitching his net up over his back importantly, Joey began marching in Amber's direction.

"Um, hi!" he said, stopping a few feet away from her. His eyes darted around frantically, as if he was searching for something to talk about. "Want to go bug catching with me?"

Oh dear Arceus. Of course she could catch enough attention for these little boys' prank, but Red barely even acknowledged the fact that she was female (He was probably just being shy! Or at least, that's what she figured).

"No thanks," Amber replied, as politely as she could. "I'm kind of busy."

Joey glanced back at his friends pleadingly, but they were now too overcome with laughter to realize they were in the world. "O-oh… Well maybe I can come with you then!"

Amber shook her head and began making her way around the clearing. Much to her dismay, he trailed behind her desperately. "Hey, where are you going?"

As far away from him as she could get.

"To find something," she said instead. Honestly, it would be a bit different if he was actually genuinely interested in her. Then, she would make more of an effort to be nice to him, at least.

Joey didn't respond that time, and Amber soon left the clearing and the bug catchers' ringing laughter behind. She grumbled to herself in annoyance at her general predicament, stomping through the forest much louder than was necessary. Too late, she realized she was undoubtedly scaring away all the pikachu by walking like that and became even more frustrated.

Barely resisting the urge to release all of her pent up anger in a scream, Amber dusted the dirt off of a nearby rock and plopped her skirt-clad bottom down on it. She reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of lemonade, which she began sipping absentmindedly. Sadly, the beverage was warm, but she preferred it over water any day.

"Hey, Girl? Girl, where'd you go?" Joey's voice cried, alarmingly close.

Amber ducked low to the ground immediately, hoping with everything she had that he wouldn't spot her. His annoying presence was the_ last_ thing she needed right now. When several minutes passed with no other words from him, her mean side found it immensely amusing to think about all the teasing the boy would probably endure for his rather sad attempts to talk to her.

Smiling at her small victory, Amber hoisted herself back onto her rock and brought her lemonade to her lips.

_Sssssssssssss._

She paused mid-sip. Was she just imagining things from being in this scary forest for so long, or had she just heard a strange sound from the nearby bushes? Uneasily, she decided it was nothing and resumed consuming her favorite drink.

_Sssssssss._

Amber brought her lemonade down once again, her green eyes darting around nervously. "J-joey? Is that you?"

_Ssssssssssssss. _

Creepily, it seemed much closer this time. "Joey, if you're trying to scare me, I _swear_ I'll-AHHHH!"

The elongated, purple form of an ekans emerged from the undergrowth, its forked tongue flickering out of its mouth. Its black eyes met Amber's gaze lazily, and she couldn't stop herself from letting out another piercing shriek. The ekans hissed, obviously expressing its displeasure at the sound.

Scared out of her mind, Amber hurled her half-full lemonade bottle at the creature. By pure chance, the object made contact with the ekan's upper back, emitting a dull 'thud' and spilling sticky yellow liquid all over its purple scales.

Turns out, the ekans wasn't too happy with her after that.

The snake let out a ferocious hiss, exposing its long, pointed fangs. It began slithering towards her, but then came something that Amber never thought she'd be happy to hear: Joey's voice.

"Poison sting, Wormy!" he yelled, materializing from the trees and pointing at the ekans with one stubby finger. A miniscule weedle rushed forwards in what both it and Joey probably deemed an intimidating manor and jabbed its tail into the other poison type.

The ekans paused in its trek, glancing back at its attacker incredulously. It flicked its tail towards Wormy, sending him roughly into a nearby tree. The bug dropped over in a dead faint at once.

Joey rubbed the back of his neck and sheepishly returned his pokemon, avoiding Amber's smoldering glare. Really, this kid couldn't even save her properly! "Sorry, sorry! No worries though, I've got Max. Get em', boy!"

An orange and black striped canine appeared in a flash of white light, legs bent in a ready stance. Amber thought he would have been adorable if he wasn't snarling.

The ekans seemed to take this new adversary much more seriously, even bothering to coil up defensively at the sight of him. Strangely, Max didn't wait for an order from Joey, instead opening his muzzle and letting loose a small stream of flames at the snake. The ekans flinched, and with one more aggressive bark from Max, appeared to decide Amber wasn't worth all the trouble after all as it retreated back into the woods.

Amber let out a relieved sigh, and was alarmed to feel herself shaking slightly. "Thanks so much Joey… I really appreciate your help. Max is pretty tough." And she meant it. The kid might have been annoying and really immature, but it didn't change the fact that he'd just saved her from her own stupidity.

He turned bright red, avoiding her gaze. "Yeah, well… Wormy's the only one I trained, Mama just forces me to bring Max 'cause she thinks there might be an emergency or something. I mean, geez, I'm not a baby anymore. I'll be ten soon!" The boy scoffed overdramatically at the end of his rant, and Amber held back a giggle. _Boys. _

"Well, thanks again. I don't have any pokemon yet, so I don't know what I would've done," she admitted, somewhat reluctantly.

"Well, that's dumb," Joey said, looking relieved to change the subject. "Why are you even in the forest without one, Girl?"

"_Amber_, not Girl," she stated, frowning at him in mild annoyance (It likely would have been far beyond 'mild' had her gratitude towards him not been so fresh). "And I'm here because I need to catch a pikachu."

"Why?" he asked, looking confused.

The question was simple, but her answer? Not so much. Her grandfather had thought it fair to give a pokemon to her brother, her lifelong crush, and her best friend, but not her. Thus, she had been left all alone back in Pallet.

Gary and Red, at least, made sense. She had always expected (And dreaded) the day that the two of them would leave their little town behind in favor of the life of a trainer. They both adored the prospect of adventure, pokemon, and in Gary's case, glory, all too much to do anything else. She hadn't truly been close to either of them in years, but she obviously still held them dear to her for two very different reasons, so she definitely missed them.

Lydia was another case entirely. Shy, smart little Lydia was never supposed to leave her. They were supposed to both stay back in Pallet, were they _belonged_, while the boys went off on their inevitable adventures for however long they deemed fit. Besides, what did she have that Amber didn't? Her own grandfather had blatantly chosen Lydia over her! And Lydia had accepted his offer.

In truth, Amber had no desire to be in the middle of Viridian Forest. However, being alone and shamed in Pallet was an even worse option and she would be darned if she didn't show them all exactly how wrong they were.

As for the reason she wanted a pikachu? Well, Red had one that he absolutely adored above practically everything else. Why _wouldn't_ she want one?

"I just really like pikachu," Amber replied simply, her cheeks tinged a light pink. Joey looked at her oddly, as if he couldn't comprehend the fact that she wouldn't be just as happy with a caterpie or weedle as he would.

"Girls are so weird…" he mumbled under his breath. Amber figured she probably wasn't supposed to hear, so she let it slide. Suddenly, he perked up, his straw hat wobbling slightly at the sudden movement. "Will you tell my friends how amazingly awesome I am if I help you find one?"

Amber raised an eyebrow. "Really? How are you gonna help me, exactly?"

"Please," Joey replied, rolling his brown eyes. "I come here all the time. And haven't you got any idea how good Max is at finding things?" Max's ears wiggled at the sound of his name and he looked between the pair of them curiously.

"Hmmm. Deal."

* * *

After another rough night spent in the woods and lots of arguing, Max let out a particularly prideful bark and Amber finally caught a glimpse of something yellow darting through the underbrush. She shoved Joey lightly. "Hurry, get it!"

After shooting her a quick glare, he darted off after Max yelling, "Hurry! Ember it, ember it!"

Max didn't use his ember attack, probably to avoid a forest fire. Instead, he nimbly leapt into the bushes and barreled into the yellow rodent that he'd been searching for since the day before. The pikachu bristled even before he sank his fangs into its soft fur, not at all happy at being found.

Its cheeks sparked and a weak electric current surged through Max, doing nothing other than briefly catching him off guard. The pikachu looked highly displeased at the small amount of damage its attack had done. Now that his target was safely out of the plant life, Max quickly shot an ember attack in its direction.

Joey elbowed Amber. "You better catch it now; I'm not looking for it all over again if it gets away!"

Hurriedly, Amber fumbled around in her pack for a moment before her hands finally clasped around a pokeball. Awkwardly, she tossed the ball at the weakened pokemon. She managed to hit the pikachu due to her close proximity, and the ball sucked it inside.

It wriggled a single time before a loud 'ding' signified a successful capture.

"Oh, yay!" she shouted excitedly, running to pick up her prize. It had been extremely difficult, but she finally had what she wanted. This horrible excursion into the deepest part of Viridian had paid off after all!

Eager to get on with their relationship, Amber almost immediately pressed the center button on the ball to release her first pokemon. The pikachu appeared, looking distinctly tired out and ruffled. It shook its head, as if confused, before suddenly letting out a displeased, "Pika!"

It crossed its tiny arms and turned its back on Amber unhappily, revealing a heart shaped tail and the fact that it was female (Amber wasn't anywhere near as knowledgeable about pokemon as her friends, but pikachu were one of her stronger points). "Hey, what are you doing?" Amber asked.

The pikachu didn't respond.

Amber blinked. Weren't pokemon supposed to_ like_ their trainers? Sure, Pikachu wasn't being aggressive towards her or anything, but she definitely didn't look like she was about to have a cuddle fest with her, either. "What's wrong?" she tried, lightly prodding Pikachu's shoulder.

"It doesn't like you," Joey responded stupidly.

"I wasn't talking to you," Amber snapped. "Hey, Pikachu? I'm Amber and I'm your trainer."

"Chu…" came the dull reply.

"Hey, Pikachu?" Nothing. "Um. I guess I should name you or something now, huh?"

She looked up at her with small black eyes, her ears drooping unenthusiastically. Joey's following cough sounded suspiciously like a disguised snigger, but Amber forced herself to ignore it.

"Alrighty then. What about Addison? Great. Amber and Addison. Sounds good together, right?" Amber asked, to which she yet again received no response. "I'll call you Adie for short."

Great… Everything was just great now that she had her Pikachu.

Right.

* * *

**AN: **Lesson of the day, folks: Never throw your drinks at potentially dangerous wild animals. Hahah.

I think an Amber POV has been needed for a long time now, yes? It was really strange doing a whole chapter in a POV that wasn't Lydia's, so I hope I didn't blur their personalities or anything. Back to the point: The chapter had lots of whining and Red worship, but maybe you guys have a better understanding of her now. Despite her faults, she does have some redeeming qualities; she's just been showing her negative traits for most of the story. Still, I definitely got a kick out of reading all the theories behind her actions. Lol.

Anyway, I apologize for the lateness of this. I'm SUPER busy with my new classes and random trips to the doctor with my grandma. Oh, and let's not forget my daily tennis practice. I'll try to get the next one out sooner, but I honestly can't promise anything with my current schedule.

As for the 100th reviewer reward I mentioned last time, I decided not to do it thanks to a certain one of my reviewers who put it in a different perspective If I do anything, it'll just be a bonus chapter or something for you all.

_**Next Chapter:** Birthday Girl_


	18. Chapter 18: Birthday Girl

**Disclaimer:** I am not filthy rich; therefor Pokemon obviously doesn't belong to me.

Thank you bunches, reviewers! Strangely, I had a much smaller amount than usual O.o Hmm. Oh well, I'm not complaining. I reached 100!

* * *

**Chapter 18: Birthday Girl**

"Hello, how can I help you?" Nurse Joy chimed as Lydia and Cassandra drug themselves tiredly into the Pewter City pokemon center. Surprisingly, they'd made great time traveling through Viridian Forest, spending only a total of three days under its tall blanket of trees.

"Could you just check out my pokemon, please?" Lydia asked shyly. She handed over Smaug and the rest of her pokeballs. Scout, who'd been rested on her head, cooed and glided over to the nurse. Her charmander and butterfree had both been kept out of their pokeballs during much of their excursion to take care of the many bug types and bug catchers they encountered.

"Of course!" the woman responded, too cheerfully. Pokemon in tow, she headed for the back room and out of sight.

"I think I'm gonna ditch you for that couch, Lydia. It looks comfortable," Cassandra said tiredly, wandering towards the waiting room. She hadn't bothered having her pokemon healed because they hadn't actually done any battling recently.

Lydia briefly smiled after her friend, and then absently glanced around the center. It appeared to be entirely deserted apart from themselves, Nurse Joy, and an elderly lady resting in a chair a few feet away from the counter. Being around eleven in the morning, she supposed it was a prime training time, which explained the large lack of trainers.

"Here you are, miss!" The sound of Nurse Joy's voice brought Lydia back to attention. Smiling her thanks, she took her pokemon, who were now all tucked away in their balls, back from the nurse and clipped them onto her belt. "They all seem happy and very well cared for."

Lydia blushed at the praise, mumbling a quick 'thank you' to the woman. Despite her subdued response, she really was thrilled to hear the news. Maybe she wasn't doing a terrible job after all!

Nurse Joy grinned, her dark blue eyes sparkling. She leaned over the counter towards Lydia. "You know… That charmander of yours really does look great. I believe you may be the proud owner of a charmeleon very soon."

Lydia's mouth dropped open. "Smaug… Might e-evolve soon?" she asked, unsure of how to take the news. She tried to picture her sweet little Smaug as a ferocious, lethal-looking charmeleon.

As a trainer, it was nice to hear that her pokemon were successfully growing, but she couldn't help but think of Scout and how much she had changed. Of course, Lydia considered her overall development a positive one, but how would Smaug turn out? He was her best friend and she loved him just the way he was. She wouldn't even be able to carry him around if he evolved into the much larger charmeleon!

"I believe so. It looks like it could be any time now, really," Nurse Joy said, beaming like it was the greatest news in the world. Lydia wasn't quite sure what she thought of it just yet. "And did you say Smaug? You wouldn't happen to be Lydia Leaf, would you?"

"U-um, yes, I'm Lydia," she said, crinkling her eyebrows in confusion.

"Oh, great! Professor Oak's mentioned you, and I got some packages for you just yesterday!" Nurse Joy said, looking relieved to have found her. She turned back towards the other room, calling, "I'll be right back, okay? Don't go anywhere."

"Tell you what, little girl," a croaky voice said suddenly. Lydia jumped slightly, and then turned to face the nearby old lady. The woman gazed back at her through her rounded spectacles, making her eyes seem twice as large as they really were. "If I were you, I'd get rid of that monster while you still can. They ought not give those things to children like you…"

Lydia blinked, entirely confused as to what she was even talking about. Finally, it clicked. "Smaug? My c-charmander, I mean?"

"Well yes, your charmander. They may be cute when they're little, but it all changes when they evolve. All they are is disobedient, volatile, and dangerous. I tell you, I know a girl whose own charmeleon sent her to the emergency room-"

"Grandma! I hope you're not scaring my trainers away with your stories again." Lydia was relieved to see Nurse Joy re-enter the room. The strawberry blonde set down the many small packages in her arms and placed her hands on her apron threateningly.

"Of course not, darling," the elderly lady said, shaking her head as if the idea was ridiculous. "I was just telling this dear girl-"

"There are your packages, Lydia," Nurse Joy interrupted, lightly pushing her towards the envelopes on the counter and approaching her grandmother. By the looks of it, she was about to give her a stern talking to, so Lydia tuned both her and the crazy charmeleon stories out for the time being. Instead, she turned towards the mysterious packages that she had received seemingly out of nowhere.

Curious, she picked one up and read the messy scrawl scribbled hastily across the front.

"_Congrats on being one year closer to being an old lady, loser." _

Shocked, Lydia's eyes sought out the calendar on the wall nearby. She had been traveling for just over two months without bothering much with the date. She'd turned thirteen yesterday without even realizing it! "Oh my gosh…" she whispered to herself, still practically frozen with surprise.

She ran her fingers over the package. It wasn't signed, but she knew the only person who'd say something like that to her was Gary. At first, she was highly skeptical that he'd even remembered her birthday (He had trouble even when they were all back home), but then she realized that he'd obviously been reminded by his mother.

Not really minding the little thought that went into it, she opened it up and a super potion slid out. A tiny note was taped to the bottle, reading in the same messy scrawl:

"_I know you need this more than I do." _

Lydia rolled her warm brown eyes, but allowed herself a chuckle all the same. She then opened the rest of her presents. She received a very sweet and long card from her parents, telling her how much they wished she was home so they could celebrate properly together. Along with it, they'd sent her an adorable bracelet with a charm of each of the pokemon she owned.

Surprisingly, Professor Oak had also sent her a present. It was something she knew she's also treasure for a long time; a detailed book on Kanto pokemon species. Apparently, it was some highly scientific addition that was hard for anyone outside the research field to get their hands on. His gift wasn't accompanied by a long note like her parents', instead simply wishing her a happy birthday and good luck on her journey.

After she'd opened the first three, only one remained. Hesitantly, she approached it. She wasn't afraid of who it was from, more like who it _wasn't_ from.

The package was a small, plain brown box, which likely confirmed her worst fears; Amber, who was supposed to be her best friend in the world, hadn't sent her anything. Surely, she would have decorated any gift of hers. Did she really hate her that much over the fact that she went on a journey? They _always_ got each other birthday gifts.

Hoping she was wrong, Lydia neatly ripped it open. The paper fell aside easily, revealing a beautiful, black stone. Awed, she grasped it carefully in her hands. When she examined it from different angles, the light reflected off of it magnificently. She knew, from reading so many pokemon books, that it was a moonstone.

A tiny slip of white paper caught her attention amidst the scraps of brown, and she picked it up to read the boyish handwriting on it.

_Happy B-day._

_-Red_

She smiled. Red's mother had without a doubt reminded him similarly to how Gary's probably had, but it didn't really matter. A moonstone was a valuable gift only found by traveling deeply into caves like Mt. Moon. Red had likely discovered it months ago when he was venturing through said cave, and unable to use it himself, sent it to her instead. She knew he wasn't the type to get her something just because it was pretty; he obviously remembered that she had Arya.

Feeling strangely happy despite the fact that Amber hadn't sent her anything, Lydia carefully packed each of her gifts into her bag. She turned around to fetch Cassandra, bumping straight into Nurse Joy in the process. The woman looked harassed, and Lydia noticed that the old lady no longer occupied her former seat.

"Listen, honey. Just ignore whatever my grandma told you. She'd old, and doesn't get much excitement, so she likes to exaggerate a bit-" Noticing the look on Lydia's face, Nurse Joy stopped her rant. "Anyway, charmeleon don't always obey their trainers perfectly, but as long as you have a good relationship, everything will be fine."

Lydia nodded, forcing a smile. Smaug loved her just as much as she loved him. He wouldn't hurt her, not ever.

Right?

Still mulling over her newfound information, Lydia made her way over to Cassandra. The redhead, who was currently sprawled across the couch in a very un-lady-like manor, raised a brow at her as she approached. "Did you just get a bunch of presents over there? What the heck were they for?"

"My birthday was yesterday," Lydia said sheepishly. "I didn't even remember until just now!"

"Oh," Cassandra said, frowning. "I didn't know… You're thirteen now, right?"

"Yep."

"Great…" Cassandra fiddled with her thumbs awkwardly. "Listen, I… I could've got you something if you would've told me, y'know."

Lydia was very surprised. "Oh, it's no problem," she said, truthfully. She didn't want anyone to feel obligated to buy her anything. However, suddenly an oddly devious idea entered her brain. "But… I mean, if you wanted to do something special for me, we could always visit that new exotic fossil exhibit I've been wanting to see!"

Cassandra blinked at her, looking dumbfounded. "I think you've been hanging out with me too much. I've tainted your innocence."

* * *

"Wooh-hoo. We've almost arrived at the nerd fest," Cassandra said sarcastically as the large, neat black and white sign that read 'Pewter Museum of Science and Pokemon' came into view.

"We won't stay long, I promise. I've just been dying to see their new fossils. Did you know they've gathered this collection from all over the-"

"I'm pretty sure your buddy Professor Coke is the only one who'd have a conversation with you about this."

Lydia blushed, catching herself. "I'm sorry. If you really don't want to come, I don't mind going alone."

Cassandra shook her head, indicating that she was planning to follow through with her promise. Lydia beamed and picked up the pace, eagerly approaching the building. To be honest, she couldn't care less about the space exhibits, but she was really interested in the pokemon fossils. She would happily learn anything new about pokemon, really.

As they grew closer to the museum, Lydia caught sight of a large group of people clustered around the entrance. The girls exchanged confused glances, frowning.

By now, they had arrived at the edge of the crowd. Lydia leaned up on her tip-toes, struggling to see over the mass of people and briefly envying the five or so inches Cassandra had on her in height.

Somehow, she managed to catch a glimpse of a vaguely familiar woman standing in the center of the people. Her hair was so perfect it looked unnatural, and her face managed to be obviously caked with makeup and actually look good at the same time. She was finely dressed, holding a microphone up to her mouth. Only then did Lydia notice the camera crew positioned around her.

"Hello, Kanto. This is Lily Morgan, reporting to you live from Pewter City Museum with the latest update on the mysterious pokemon fossil theft. Professor Scott, head of Kanto paleontology, has agreed to release inside information in a personal interview shortly."

Lydia gasped quietly. Could they possibly be referring to the new collection fossils that she had wanted so badly to see? They were interesting, and definitely priceless, but she couldn't fathom why on earth someone would want to steal them. What would one even _do_ with them other than display them in a museum?

A man pushed his way from the side of the crowd facing the entrance of the museum then. He was middle aged, with short, tightly curled hair and beady eyes. His long white lab coat sort of reminded Lydia of Professor Oak.

"Folks, here is the famed Professor Scott." As the newswoman spoke, several of the cameras switched focus from her to the professor. Despite the situation, Lydia couldn't help but notice the huge difference in the appearance of the two being broadcasted. She shook her head, returning her attention to the actual interview.

"Hello, Lily," the man said, managing to look both solemn and awkward at the same time. "As of right now, we still have no leads on this terrible occurrence. Who could do this to me?" He sniffled a bit.

"You were in charge of putting this priceless collection together, yes?"

"I was, and it's definitely priceless. Never before have the fossils of kabuto, aerodactyl, lileep, cranidos, and many more been together in a single location. The collection is official property of the Kanto government," Professor Scott said, exhaling in a way that Lydia assumed was to help keep himself composed. "As soon as we find out who did this, they'll definitely be in for it."

"Being one of the leading researchers of this field, surely you have some clue as to the thief's incentives?"

"Other than hoping to earn some ransom money with them, not at all. They're far too recognizable to sell or display and any other option is too expensive to undertake with the amount of fossils stolen." Professor Scott eyed the woman like she was particularly unintelligent. Then again, most people probably were when compared to a famous scientist like him.

Lily Morgan didn't appear to notice. Instead, she nodded sympathetically. "I see. So, Professor Scott; what do you plan to do now that such an important part of your life has gone missing?"

"If nothing turns up, I suppose I'll return to my research facility on Cinnabar Island soon."

"Of course. You've just been visiting the exhibits at the Pewter Museum for the past couple days, correct?"

"Yes. My permanent residence has always been our lab in Cinnabar," Professor Scott said, beginning to look bored.

"Well, unfortunately, our time together is coming to a close," Lily Morgan said, turning to face the camera seriously. "If anyone has any information regarding this theft, Professor Scott, the staff of Pewter Museum, and all of Kanto would greatly appreciate it."

Professor Scott coughed. "Yes, greatly!"

"This is Lily Morgan, reporting live from Pewter Museum. Back to you, Jimmy."

Lily Morgan and her camera crew relaxed (Professor Scott had never looked particularly camera-happy in the first place) and much of the crowd slowly dispersed. The professor mumbled a hasty goodbye to his interviewer before shuffling back inside the museum, where we was likely much more at home.

Lydia stood slouched in her former position, still unable to get over the shock of what she'd just found out. Cassandra nudged her. "Uh… Sorry about your rocks Lydia. We can still go check out the other stuff if you want, I guess…"

She shook her head. "No thanks. The fossils were the only thing I cared about, anyway. I'm sure I'll be able to see them eventually. I mean, whoever took them would have to be brilliant to keep them hidden for long with so many people looking for them."

Cassandra shrugged, though Lydia noticed she looked slightly relieved that she wouldn't have to go in the museum, after all. "I guess. We can just go train for your gym battle, instead." The redhead looked at her pointedly before starting back the way they'd come.

Sighing, Lydia trailed behind her. She needed to train for her gym battle, alright. The gym battle she didn't even really want to take part in.

Her mind wandered, not for the first time, back to the time Professor Oak had casually mentioned that she might make a good researcher herself. Not only did she admire people like him, and to a lesser extent, Professor Scott, she adored pokemon. Not battling, just pokemon in general.

_Professor Leaf. _She smiled to herself, deciding it had a nice ring to it.

All she had to do was break the news to her supposedly soon to be vicious charmeleon. Lydia shuddered, unsure whether it was from the old woman's stories or the prospect of eventually letting Smaug know she wasn't as interested in battling as he seemed to be.

Lydia decided that when she did become Professor Leaf, she'd never wear a lab coat. Even if Amber wasn't speaking to her long enough to scold her, Scarlet would just end up making it her new scratching post anyway.

* * *

**AN: **Yeah, it was a mostly filler chapter, but this stuff is important and had to be mentioned sometime (Our little Lydia is officially a teenager *Sniff*.) Excitement should be picking back up in a couple chapters, though. Oh, and in case you were a little confused about the timeline, Lydia would've passed through Viridian Forest for a couple days while Amber was in the deepest part searching for her pikachu. Oh, the irony.

Since my characters' pokemon teams are starting to really grow at this point, I've decided to make a quick list of all of their *known* pokemon, just in case you guys are getting them confused:

**Lydia:** Smaug (Charmander), Scout (Butterfree), Arya (Nidoran), Scarlet (Meowth), and Juliet (Seel).

**Cassandra:** Ghastly and Shellder.

**Amber:** Adie (Pikachu)

**Red:** Pikachu and Ivysaur

**Gary:** Squirtle, Spearow, and Mankey (Not actively on team)

Gary and Red actually have much more developed teams at this point, but you'll see more on that later. Quick question: Do you think I should use Red's in game team? I want to, but it would mean he has two of the same pokemon as Lydia and Gary (Charizard and Blastoise, respectively).


End file.
